Autoimmune & Inflammation
18 stories
Why Anti-TNF Keeps Failing So Many Crohn's Patients: The Drug Never Reached the Cell Holding the Disease Open
Anti-TNF biologics have muzzled the immune system for 25 years, and up to 46 percent of Crohn's patients still fail them. A single-cell atlas points at the structural cells of the gut wall, epigenetically rewired into a state the drugs were never built to reach.
Autoimmune & InflammationOne Protein Keeps Your Immune System's Peacekeeper Cells From Switching Sides
Regulatory T cells are supposed to be the immune system's off switch. Strip out a protein called TIF1γ and, under inflammation, they lose that identity, start producing an inflammatory cytokine, and join the attack.
Autoimmune & InflammationThe Finest Immune Map of the Sarcoid Lung Explains Why Its Targeted Drugs Keep Failing
National Jewish Health charted more than 150,000 immune cells from sixteen sarcoidosis patients and found a disease with too many moving parts for any single drug to switch off. The targeted therapy that got furthest had already failed Phase 3 and erased 83 percent of its maker's value.
Autoimmune & InflammationThe Body's Own Brake on Inflammation: Mapped in 2015, Still Not in a Pill
A kinase called MST4 rides the brake on TRAF6, the protein that lets inflammation spiral, doing gently from inside the cell what broad autoimmune drugs force from the outside. Researchers mapped it in 2015. No pill uses it yet.
Autoimmune & InflammationA Map of 1.1 Million Lung Immune Cells Finds the Genetic Risk for Autoimmune Disease in Tissue, Not Blood
Researchers at La Jolla mapped genetic activity in 1.1 million lung immune cells and found about 1,000 genes whose activity is tuned by disease-risk variants only inside tissue, plus 1,700 that read differently in women than in men.
Autoimmune & InflammationThe Lungs May Be Where Rheumatoid Arthritis Actually Starts
Across Italy, South Korea, and California, higher fine-particle pollution tracks more RA flares and more new cases, and the biology keeps pointing at the airway, not the knee.
Autoimmune & InflammationRare but Real: The Autoimmune Hepatitis After mRNA That VAERS Was Built to Miss
Twenty-seven biopsy-confirmed cases of autoimmune hepatitis after an mRNA dose, jaundice and an ALT of 1,092 that resolved on steroids. The disproportionality math found 'no safety signal.' It was measuring a reporting system, not the liver.
Autoimmune & InflammationA 30-Minute Sauna Floods the Blood With Immune Cells, and the Heat Isn't What Triggers Them
Finnish researchers put 51 people in a 73-degree sauna and watched every class of white blood cell surge, then found the surge had almost nothing to do with how hot anyone actually got.
Autoimmune & InflammationHistamine Was Always the Wrong Target for the Eczema Itch
Eczema itch runs on cytokines, not mainly histamine, which is why the pills in the allergy aisle keep failing the trials, and a network meta-analysis just said so one more time.
Autoimmune & InflammationA Chinese Bark Compound Reached the Black-Box Arthritis Drugs' Pathway From Upstream, in Rats
In rats, a compound from the bark of the Amur cork tree reached the same JAK-STAT pathway as Xeljanz and its black-box cousins, but by rebalancing the cell's fat metabolism instead of blocking the pathway directly.
Autoimmune & InflammationA Petri Dish of Angry Immune Cells, a Little Ultrasound, and a Very Big Headline
UAH researchers used sound waves to shift immune cells from attack mode toward repair. The press release said 'stop arthritis before it starts.' The experiment never touched a joint.
Autoimmune & InflammationThe Anti-Inflammatory Worm That Only Works If You Feed It Fiber
Feed a rat plenty of fiber and a harmless tapeworm reaches full size and quiets the immune system. Cut the fiber to Western levels and the same worm shrinks, stops reproducing, and its anti-inflammatory power switches off.
Autoimmune & InflammationThe Allergy Cell Everyone Wanted Dead Turns Out to Run Your Gut Lining and Your Metabolism
Eosinophils were the villain of asthma and allergy, the cell whole-body drugs are built to erase. A decade of tissue biology says they also seal your gut, feed your antibodies, and tune your fat, and the trials never measured any of it.
Autoimmune & InflammationThe Gene That Decides Whether Smoggy Air Wrecks Your Lungs
A University of Pittsburgh study of nearly 1,000 asthma patients pinpoints seven oxidative-stress genes that decide how badly dirty air damages the lungs.
Autoimmune & InflammationYour Thymus Quietly Stages a Lung. Researchers Just Named the Cell Playing the Part.
A new Nature Immunology study identifies an alveolar lung-like cell hiding inside the thymus, where it appears to teach the immune system not to attack your real lungs.
Autoimmune & InflammationA near-starvation diet shifted inflammation in gum-disease patients. The trial was tiny, and the diet came in a box.
A 28-patient feasibility trial put severe gum-disease patients on three cycles of a 750-calorie ProLon diet. Inflammation markers trended lower; clinical gum measures weren't reported. The biology question is real; the data is thin.
Autoimmune & InflammationFish oil rewired the T-cells in non-obese diabetic rats, and the glucose moved with them
A Brazilian team gave EPA-heavy fish oil to a non-obese diabetic rat strain for eight weeks. Glucose, insulin sensitivity, and lipids all moved in the friendlier direction. The T-cell balance shifted alongside them, and that is the part of the paper worth chewing on.
Autoimmune & InflammationThe Herbal Steroid That Hits Pharma's Holy-Grail Kidney Target
A Shanghai lab reports a steroid from a Yunnan mountain plant, already sold over the counter to bodybuilders, suppresses the same kidney-fibrosis pathway Big Pharma keeps circling and never quite closes on.