Immune System Switches
For as much control as we exert over our bodies, it’s amazing to me how much control it retains for itself. So many involuntary actions that occur regardless of whether we want them to or not. I really hadn’t thought much about it until I came across an article in Harvard Magazine entitled, “‘Tyrant Fever’s’ Trigger.” In it, author Elizabeth Gudrais describes a project at Harvard Medical School where a team of scientists have used genetically engineered mice to confirm the origin of fever response in the brain. Because of the genetic manipulation, the experiment won’t be replicated in humans, but the research team, Putnam professor of neurology and neuroscience Clifford Saper, M.D. and postdoctoral fellow Michael Lazarus, believe it’s possible to find drugs that will block the prostaglandin receptors linked to the body’s ability to trigger a fever and its accompanying symptoms.
Prostaglandin is produced as a result of the presence of cytokines, hormone-like chemicals produced as part of the inflammation response by the immune system, and the presence of bacterial cell-wall components in the body. Its presence is the trigger for our body to activate its next stages in its immune defense, including a fever, aches, fatigue and loss of appetite. This response evolved over time and is what has kept us alive during some of our worst illnesses, but we often feel miserable as we progress through the response, and it’s suspected by this research team that some of it might be overkill. For example, our loss of appetite might sound like a good idea because our body is attempting to reduce our blood-sugar level in order to prevent bacteria from thriving in a sugar-rich environment. But invaders that don’t replicate in the blood stream aren’t phased by this kind of defense and the body might benefit from more food.
Doctors believe they can make the body’s response more efficient by customizing it, essentially setting up a series of biochemical “switches” that can be turned on or off depending on the disease your body is trying to fight. The chronic fatigue cancer patients feel was cited as an example for which the body’s typical immune response could be suppressed. However, before this kind of targeted response can be controlled, Saper indicated there still will be much research ahead of them before anything can be implemented as a treatment.
Saper and his team is using the primary over-the-counter treatment for fever control, aspirin, as an instructive model for an understanding of how they can forge ahead with their research. Its naturally occurring precursor is willow bark, which has been leveraged for its medicinal characteristics for a thousand years before aspirin was synthesized in 1897. (1) It wasn’t until the 1970s, however, that scientists determined how aspirin is able to keep the symptoms of a typical immune response to a controlled level: by blocking the formation of prostaglandins. Using aspirin as a seed, Saper hopes that he and his team can figure out what triggers everything else as the tree of symptoms grow from one’s immune system response.
I think that this kind of ability to tailor an immune response is fascinating and will certainly give us a better understanding of the functions of our human body. In certain situations, I can see its benefit, but I am concerned that we’re not being responsible in this kind of research. Are we so arrogant to assume that just because we understand a process it means we should look for ways to tailor or circumvent it? I don’t believe we should not necessarily use what this team is learning to bypass the mechanism that’s been developed over thousands of years of evolution to defend us internally.
In addition, it strikes me that ability to suppress an immune system response doesn’t actually fix the problem of the invader that triggered it in the first place. It doesn’t make me feel comfortable that my body wouldn’t be allowed to do everything that is naturally supposed to do in order to stave off an infection. It makes it too easy to mask problems by preventing pain; though this may not be the intent of a majority of doctors that would use it, realistically, how many people would self-medicate and potentially miss a life-threatening disease before it’s too late?
There is no doubt in my mind that this research should continue, if for no other reason than to better understand the human body and our defense systems. But before I pop a pill 10 years from now that may be a result of this research being done today, I’d prefer to know why my body is causing the need for the pill in the first place.
(1) See “‘Tyrant Fever’s’ Trigger,” by Elizabeth Gdrais, Harvard Magazine, March-April 2008.
