I learn more about cytokine storms every day. It sounds like an old school Marvel comics crossover with the X-Men books. However in real life, a cytokine storm occurs when the body's immune system overreacts to a respiratory infection causing the lungs to flood with fluids and mucous - thus, drowning the victim. Canadian science believes that a certain cytokine storm molecule interleukin 17 may be a clue to explain why some people die from H1N1 "swine flu" and others suffer only mild symptoms.
Source: CTV News
The researchers from Toronto's University Health Network found high levels of a molecule called interleukin 17 in the blood of severely ill H1N1 patients, and low levels in patients with mild forms of the disease.
Interleukin 17 is a cytokine, a kind of molecule that helps regulate the body's white blood cells which fight viral, bacterial and other infections.
But interleukin 17 can also go "out of control" in some cases and has been linked with such inflammatory autoimmune diseases as rheumatoid arthritis and asthma.
In the cases of respiratory infections, cytokines plays a part in a potentially fatal immune reaction called a "cytokine storm," in which the immune system of a healthy person goes haywire and "overreacts" to an infection. The cytokines command a patient's body to flood the lungs with fluids and mucous, which can eventually block off the airways and "drown" the patient.
Cytokine storms are what are thought to have caused many of the deaths in the SARS outbreak, bird flu, and the 1918 Spanish flu, which killed a disproportionate number of otherwise healthy adults.
Source: CTV News
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