4 ms·
> Autoimmune issues I'm feeling much less confident about. It seems like so many of the therapies are "turn down the immune system". The immune system has many
by steelframe 2y ago
> Autoimmune issues I'm feeling much less confident about. It seems like so many of the therapies are "turn down the immune system".
The immune system has many branches, and you can effectively deplete one branch of the immune system while preserving the other branches to fight infection. For example with MS a very effective treatment is CD20+ B cell suppression, as rituximab does. For many people diagnosed with MS this has been effectively a "cure," in the sense that while they need to continually deplete their CD20+ B cells, their disease doesn't progress in any meaningful way, and their immune systems remain largely able to fight infection.
So we don't need to wholesale "turn down" the entire immune system for many autoimmune diseases. Rather, we need to surgically target specific parts of it and either suppress those parts or modify their behavior. Given the success we've seen with ritixumab and MS I'm more optimistic about our prospects for finding effective treatments for autoimmune conditions.
- hanniabu 2y agoAnd all of this is controlled by your microbiome which is always ignored. I really wish more money was put towards researching that. It's literally our body's bioreactor.
- phito 2y agoIs it really controlled by the microbiome or is it just a factor among many others?
- meindnoch 2y agoAh yes, the "gut" meme. No, the immune system is not controlled by our microbiome. The microbiome interacts with, and modulates the immune system in various ways, but it's hardly "controlling" it. There are germ-free animal models with sterile guts, which demonstrate that you can live without a microbiome - of course not 100% healthy, but they can still live and reproduce. The immune system is modulated by a lot of things: circadian rhythm, environmental stress, nutrients, etc. Yes, the gut microbiome is one of them. But let's be a bit more nuanced than Joe Rogan or The Liver King.