{"id":2419202,"date":"2020-08-10T08:22:38","date_gmt":"2020-08-10T12:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.futurity.org\/?p=2419202"},"modified":"2020-08-10T08:22:38","modified_gmt":"2020-08-10T12:22:38","slug":"immune-systems-covid-19-viruses-2419202-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.futurity.org\/immune-systems-covid-19-viruses-2419202-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Can boosting the immune system treat COVID-19?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Boosting the immune system could offer a potential treatment strategy for COVID-19, according to a new study.<\/p>\n
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to claim lives around the world, much research has focused on the immune system’s role in patients who become seriously ill.<\/p>\n
A popular theory has it that the immune system gets so revved up fighting the virus that, after several days, it produces a so-called cytokine storm<\/a> that results in potentially fatal organ damage, particularly to the lungs.<\/p>\n “Some drugs tamp down the immune response, while others enhance it. Everybody seems to be throwing the kitchen sink at the illness.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n But the new findings point to another theory and suggest that patients become ill because their immune systems can’t do enough to protect them from the virus, landing them in intensive care units.<\/p>\n Researchers detailed the new strategy to boost the immune system in two papers, in JAMA Network Open<\/a><\/em> and in the journal JCI Insight<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n “People around the world have been treating patients seriously ill with COVID-19 using drugs that do very different things,” says senior investigator Richard S. Hotchkiss, professor of anesthesiology, of medicine, and of surgery at Washington University in St. Louis.<\/p>\n “Some drugs tamp down the immune response, while others enhance it. Everybody seems to be throwing the kitchen sink at the illness. It may be true that some people die from a hyperinflammatory response<\/a>, but it appears more likely to us that if you block the immune system too much, you’re not going to be able to control the virus.”<\/p>\n “We think if we can make our immune systems stronger, we’ll be better able to fight off this coronavirus…”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The researchers have been investigating a similar approach in treating sepsis, a potentially fatal condition that also involves patients who simultaneously seem to have overactive and weakened immune systems.<\/p>\n Hotchkiss points to autopsy studies performed by other groups showing large amounts of coronavirus present in the organs of people who died<\/a> from COVID-19, suggesting that their immune systems were not working well enough to fight the virus.<\/p>\n His colleague, Kenneth E. Remy, first author of the JCI Insight<\/em> paper, compares efforts to inhibit the immune system to fixing a flat tire by letting more air out.<\/p>\n “But when we actually looked closely at these patients, we found that their tires, so to speak, were underinflated or immune-suppressed,” says Remy, assistant professor of pediatrics, of medicine, and of anesthesiology.<\/p>\n “To go and poke holes in them with anti-inflammatory drugs because you think they are hyperinflated or hyperinflamed will only make the suppression and the disease worse.”<\/p>\n