CANNES, France, April 30 -- In the absence of hard data about what is killing swine flu victims in Mexico and why the virus seems to be attacking younger adults, researchers here speculated that it could have to do with the body's immune response.
Younger adults have a much stronger immune response to invading pathogens than young children and older adults, said Robert Webster, Ph.D., of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, at the conference on Influenza Vaccines for the World.
It's this exaggerated response -- called "cytokine storm" or hypercytokinemia -- that may be causing death more frequently in younger adults, he said.
And drugs like statins, fibrates, and glitazones, which all have anti-inflammatory properties in addition to their primary functions, may be useful treatment, said David Fedson, M.D., formerly of the University of Virginia School of Medicine and Aventis Pasteur MSD, now retired.
The cytokine storm theory is believed to explain the same pattern of deaths during the 1918 flu pandemic that killed tens of millions of people.
"It's the folks who are at their prime of immune response, and it's really that being at the prime of your immune response you turn on your cytokines more rapidly to higher levels than you do later or earlier in life," Dr. Webster said.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/SwineFlu/13989?utm_source=mSpoke&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DailyHeadlines&utm_content=GroupB&userid=160941&impressionId=1241145655133What does that mean for people with AI disease? Our immune system is haywire and over active.yes, i have the same question. what does that mean for people with auto immune diseases?