Health
In lupus breakthrough, researchers say they may have found what causes the autoimmune disease
Scientists may have pinpointed a primary cause of lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease.
Researchers from Northwestern Medicine in Chicago and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston claim they have found a “molecular defect” that leads to systemic lupus erythematosus (known as lupus).
The study findings were published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
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“Lupus is an autoimmune disease that at its core involves abnormal B cell activation and antibody production,” study author Deepak Rao, M.D., PhD, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a rheumatologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told Fox News Digital via email.
“This B cell activation and antibody production requires help from T cells (white blood cells that are integral to immune system activity).”
Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks healthy tissue in the body, which causes inflammation and pain in the body. (iStock)
In the course of the research, the scientists tested the blood of 19 lupus patients and compared it to a control group of healthy individuals.
The people with lupus shared certain molecular changes that caused a “dramatic imbalance” in the types of T-cells they generate, according to Rao.
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This imbalance resulted in too many “harmful” T-cells — which cause cellular damage — and too few of the “helpful” type that are necessary for cell repair.
The researchers also identified a protein called interferon that promotes the excess accumulation of T cells, Rao said.
“We have known for many years that patients with lupus have too much interferon production, yet how interferon contributes to disease has been unclear,” he said.
“This study reveals a new potential therapeutic strategy to treat lupus.”
The study discovered that interferon contributes to the lupus disease by promoting the expansion of certain types of T cells and “amplifying pathologic T cell-B cell interactions,” Rao said.
The researchers also discovered that the activation of one specific protein, the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR), can prevent T cells from developing into disease-causing cells.
Some 1.5 million Americans are living with lupus, with about 16,000 new cases each year, according to the Lupus Foundation of America, based in Washington, D.C. (iStock)
“This study reveals a new potential therapeutic strategy to treat lupus,” Rao said.
“We aim to use small molecule activators of AHR, directed specifically toward T cells, as a treatment to suppress the pathologic T cell response in lupus and reprogram those T cells toward other benign or protective functions.”
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This approach could potentially be safer and more effective than current broad immunosuppressive therapies because it targets the disease-causing cells, according to study co-author Jaehyuk Choi, M.D., PhD, an associate professor of dermatology and a Northwestern Medicine dermatologist.
“While we don’t know which patients this can best help, our data suggests it could potentially be broadly useful for all patients with lupus,” Choi told Fox News Digital in an email.
Industry experts weigh in
Dr. Mara Lennard Richard, scientific program officer at the Lupus Research Alliance in New York City, which partially funded the research, said the study provides hope to those who struggle with lupus symptoms.
“This research is very exciting, and we are intrigued by the findings, which may pave the way to a potential new treatment,” Richard told Fox News Digital via email.
Brooke Goldner, M.D., a California-based board-certified physician and creator of the Hyper-Nourishing Nutrition Protocol for Lupus Reversal, said that targeted immune therapy using T cells and B cells is a “new and exciting focus” in lupus research. (iStock/Dr. Brooke Goldner)
“However, lupus is a highly complex disease with many contributing factors, and more research is needed to confirm these results,” she went on.
“We believe that many new targets and treatments are needed to improve the lives of people living with lupus.”
Brooke Goldner, M.D., a California-based board-certified physician and creator of the Hyper-Nourishing Nutrition Protocol for Lupus Reversal, said that targeted immune therapy using T cells and B cells is a “new and exciting focus” in lupus research.
“We believe that many new targets and treatments are needed to improve the lives of people living with lupus.”
“If it is proven effective, it would present a far more specific way to medically attenuate the abnormal immune response in lupus patients than current medications that suppress immunity more broadly,” Goldner, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital in an email.
“However, the effectiveness and possible side effects of these therapies are still unknown.”
It is still unclear how these abnormalities in the immune cells are triggered, she noted.
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“People with lupus are not born with symptoms of the disease, but they are triggered at some point in their lives, which leads to their diagnosis,” Goldner said.
“That leaves the question: Are their immune cells actually normal prior to the disease being triggered? Does this trigger then activate abnormal gene expression, which causes the creation of these abnormal immune cells?”
“If that is the case, then the immune treatments [the researchers] are proposing would still be considered a treatment, not a cure, unless they are going to turn off gene expression more specifically and permanently.”
Limitations of the study
The research was mainly performed in-vitro using cells from patients, Rao acknowledged.
“We do not yet know what will happen to the T cell response if activators of AHR are used in people, or how effective this strategy will be to improve symptoms of lupus,” he added.
Even so, the researchers are hopeful that this discovery will pave the way to advances in lupus treatment.
Lupus is more common among women between 15 and 44 years of age and people who are African American, Asian American, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, or Pacific Islander, according to experts in the field. (iStock)
“This study is an excellent example of how we can gain new, important insights into the pathways that contribute to disease by doing careful analyses of samples from patients with a disease,” Rao noted.
“This ‘human immunology’ approach provided both new insights into how T cells are regulated and a new idea for how to treat lupus.”
What to know about lupus
Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks healthy tissue in the body, which causes inflammation and pain in the body, according to the Lupus Foundation of America’s website.
The disease most often affects the joints, skin and major organs, such as the kidneys and heart.
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Common symptoms include joint pain, extreme fatigue or a butterfly rash.
There are four different types of lupus, as detailed on the foundation’s website.
A facial “butterfly rash” is one of the hallmark symptoms of lupus. (iStock)
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), the most common form, affects multiple organs or organ systems.
Cutaneous lupus only affects the skin, while drug-induced lupus is triggered by specific prescription drugs.
Neonatal lupus is a rare condition that is passed from a pregnant woman to her infant.
Some 1.5 million Americans are living with lupus, with about 16,000 new cases each year, according to the Lupus Foundation of America, based in Washington, D.C.
Lupus can run in families, and it’s also more common among women between 15 and 44 years of age and people who are African American, Asian American, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, or Pacific Islander, according to the same foundation.
In addition to medication, lupus patients can manage their illness with certain lifestyle behaviors, such as eating an anti-inflammatory diet and managing emotional stress, an expert said. (iStock)
In addition to medication, lupus patients can manage their illness with certain lifestyle behaviors, Goldner said, such as eating an anti-inflammatory diet and managing emotional stress.
“The field of lifestyle medicine has shown that symptoms can be reversed long-term using lifestyle modification,” she said.
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“It would be extremely interesting to have researchers evaluate the activity of these abnormal immune cells before and after lifestyle modification to see whether it has manifested a similar reversal of the activity of these abnormal B cells without using the more invasive medical treatment.”
Over the two and a half years following the 2022 rollout of the 988 national suicide prevention hotline, the rate of suicides among young people in the United States dropped 11 percent below projections, decreasing most sharply in states with a higher volume of answered 988 calls, a new study has found.
The findings, published today as a research letter in JAMA, compared suicide deaths from July 2022 to December 2024 with sophisticated mathematical projections that were based on historical trends. This yielded good news, with 4,372 fewer suicides of adolescents and young adults, ages 15 to 34, than had been projected.
To ensure that the decline was related to the use of the hotline, researchers at Harvard Medical School teased out the trends in states with high and low usage of the hotline. The findings were striking: The 10 states with the largest increases in 988 calls experienced an 18.2 percent reduction in observed suicides compared with expected suicides; in the 10 states with the lowest uptake, the reduction was smaller, 10.6 percent.
The results suggest that the government’s investment in the 988 rollout has translated into “a measurable reduction of deaths,” said Dr. Vishal Patel, a resident physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and one of the authors of the study.
“What our study has added,” he said, “is evidence for the deeper benefit of the program, and that is, that at the population level, among young people at least, suicide mortality is lower than it would have been without the program.”
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He added, “The implication of that is that sustained funding for this program matters.”
The United States rolled out the three-digit hotline with bipartisan support in July 2022, replacing a 10-digit hotline number, and augmented it with a $1.5 billion investment in crisis center capacity. Since its inception, the service has fielded more than 25 million contacts, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The agency has asked Congress for $534.6 million to fund the program for 2027.
Last summer, the Trump administration terminated one element of the hotline, the Press 3 option for L.G.B.T.Q.+ callers. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration said that the Press 3 option was being discontinued because it had exhausted its funding from Congress and that the hotline would “focus on serving all help seekers.”
But advocacy groups and policymakers protested the decision, and in testimony before the Senate on Tuesday, the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said his agency was planning to restore the Press 3 option.
Dr. Patel said his group had become curious about measuring the program’s effectiveness after Press 3 was eliminated. While call volume and satisfaction surveys suggested that 988 was succeeding, he said, the harder question was, “Did the creation of this 988 program, the transition from the old hotline to this hotline, actually move the needle on suicide mortality?”
Experts said it was difficult to tease out the beneficial effect of 988 from other things that changed in 2022, the year that the new hotline was created. Around that time, suicide prevention programs were being introduced in schools, in faith communities and on social media, but more important, the pandemic was ending.
“We were finally out of this crazy time, and there was a sense of optimism and hope,” said Jonathan B. Singer, a professor of social work at Loyola University Chicago and a co-author of “Suicide in Schools.” He called the downward trend in youth suicides “encouraging, but it is tempered by the fact that we don’t have a good explanation as to why.”
The authors acknowledged that their findings could not account for the influence of social and economic changes, changes in mental health services or public awareness about services.
But they did make comparisons to exclude other possible explanations. The authors looked for similar effects among American adults over 65, who are less likely to use the hotline. In that group, there was a reduction in suicides that exceeded expectations, but it was smaller, at just 4.5 percent.
To ensure the decline in suicides did not reflect a general improvement in young-adult mortality, the researchers tracked cancer deaths, and found there was no change. They also looked at the rates of suicide among young people in England, where no change had been made to the national crisis line in that time period; they found no reduction in youth suicides there.
Hannah Wesolowski, chief advocacy officer for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said she was persuaded that the hotline had contributed to the improvement in suicide rates, in part because it did not appear among English youths or in older Americans.
“To me, that really helps hone in that this might really be the differentiator,” she said. “We are seeing potentially a pretty significant decline in suicides among young people. For public policy, this is strong evidence to double down on that we are doing.”
Emily Hilliard, a senior press secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, said H.H.S. and SAMHSA are “committed to ensuring that all Americans have access” the 988 line, which she said “clearly provides lifesaving support, helping millions of people every year.”
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.
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A highly contagious digestive virus is surging across the U.S., experts warn.
Rotavirus, a double-stranded RNA virus, causes acute gastroenteritis — inflammation of the stomach and intestines — which can lead to severe diarrhea, vomiting, fever and stomach pain.
The virus primarily affects infants and young children, but there have also been outbreaks in elderly populations, such as nursing homes.
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Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that in the week ending April 4, out of 2,329 rotavirus tests, 7.3% were positive for the infection. Last year’s highest infection rate was 6.77% as of the week ending April 19.
Rotavirus, a double-stranded RNA virus, causes acute gastroenteritis — inflammation of the stomach and intestines — which can lead to severe diarrhea, vomiting, fever and stomach pain. (iStock)
“We’re seeing a lot of rotavirus in the wastewater right now,” Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News senior medical analyst, confirmed to Fox News Digital. “Testing for rotavirus is way down, but the percentage of positive tests is up.”
While the virus typically peaks in the spring, it is not currently slowing down, he noted.
Why cases may be rising
Patricia Pinto-Garcia, M.D., a medical editor at GoodRx who is based in California, said there are several possible reasons for the rotavirus spike.
“Vaccine rates are down overall among young children, as they decreased during COVID,” she told Fox News Digital. “This means there’s a growing number of infants and young children who are vulnerable to infection.”
The rotavirus vaccine series must be completed by the time a child is 8 months old, she noted.
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As a result of the declining vaccinations, herd immunity isn’t protecting vulnerable children, according to Pinto-Garcia. “Children who haven’t finished the vaccine series yet, are too young to get vaccinated, or can’t get the vaccine due to medical illness are more likely to get exposed to the illness because other children aren’t vaccinated,” she said.
Siegel noted that before the vaccine became available, rotavirus resulted in 55,000 to 70,000 in the U.S. per year.
“Vaccine rates are down overall among young children, as they decreased during COVID,” a doctor told Fox News Digital. “This means there’s a growing number of infants and young children who are vulnerable to infection.” (iStock)
“I am concerned that the vaccination rate has been declining over the past seven years and is continuing to decline in the current climate of vaccine skepticism,” he said.
Surveillance methods are also much better than they used to be, Pinto-Garcia noted, which means public health experts are able to pick up and track cases better than ever before.
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“But we see that rotavirus-related healthcare visits are also up, so improved detection is not the only reason we are seeing this spike,” she said.
The COVID pandemic also disrupted the pattern of infections, according to Pinto-Garcia, so it’s “tricky” to compare the current levels against older cycles.
“It’s possible that what we are seeing is still some post-pandemic rebound, but it’s unlikely that this year’s pattern is fully explained by just this factor,” she added.
Transmission and risk
Dr. Zachary Hoy, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Pediatrix Medical Group based in Nashville, Tennessee, often sees young patients with rotavirus.
“Rotavirus is spread via the fecal-oral route, meaning that a person comes into contact with virus droplets from contact with other children or adults, or from contact with objects such as toys that have been contaminated with the virus from someone who is sick,” he told Fox News Digital. “This can lead to outbreaks, especially at schools where many young children share the same toys.”
“It’s possible that what we are seeing is still some post-pandemic rebound, but it’s unlikely that this year’s pattern is fully explained by just this factor.”
Rotavirus is associated with many dehydration cases in the hospital due to the degree of diarrhea, according to Hoy.
In some severe cases, the virus can lead to seizures due to electrolyte imbalances from dehydration and loss of electrolytes in the stool.
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“Younger children do not have the reserves that older children and adults have, so they can become more dehydrated quicker and develop more severe electrolyte imbalances, leading to more severe infections,” Hoy said.
“Patients with problems with their immune systems or on medications that can decrease their immune systems can have more severe and prolonged infections, too.”
Treatment and care
Because rotavirus is a viral infection, antibiotics are not effective against it. There is no specific antiviral treatment for the condition, with doctors typically recommending supportive care.
“The mainstay of treatment is hospitalization for rehydration via intravenous (IV) fluids,” Hoy told Fox News Digital. “Sometimes it can take up to two to three days of IV fluids to help get patients rehydrated.”
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Blood draws are often necessary to evaluate patients’ electrolyte levels, such as sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium, according to the doctor.
“If these electrolyte levels are significantly low, sometimes patients need special IV solutions or individual electrolyte medications,” he added.
“The mainstay of treatment is hospitalization for rehydration via intravenous (IV) fluids,” a doctor told Fox News Digital. (iStock)
Dr. Daniel Park, medical director of the Pediatric Emergency Department at UNC Health in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, noted that most children recover with supportive care, but parents should seek medical attention if a child shows signs of dehydration. Those include decreased urination, lethargy or inability to keep fluids down.
“While rare, rotavirus can be life-threatening in vulnerable populations, especially very young infants or children with underlying medical conditions,” Park told Fox News Digital.
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Prevention strategies
Given the lack of antiviral medications for rotavirus, doctors emphasize the importance of prevention, primarily the vaccine.
There are two rotavirus vaccines – Rotateq (a three-dose series) and Rotarix (a two-dose series). They are given starting at age 2 months as oral drops, not injections, according to Hoy.
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“It’s important to get the rotavirus vaccines on schedule, because these younger infants are at greatest risk if they get rotavirus,” he advised.
Other recommended prevention methods include handwashing with soap and water.
Every day we’re faced with a zillion small choices: Go to sleep early, or watch one more episode of that Netflix drama. Call an old friend to catch up, or cruise social media. Of course, no single action will guarantee a long, healthy life or doom you to an early grave. But those little daily decisions do add up, and over the long term they can make a difference when it comes to both your longevity and your health span, the amount of life spent in relatively good health.
Scroll through this theoretical “day in the life” and select the option that best fits your typical day. Not every situation will apply perfectly, but think about which choice you’d be most likely to make. This isn’t a formal scientific assessment. The goal here isn’t to assign you a “good” or “bad” score, but to help you understand the central factors that shape the way we age and how long we live.
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