What does it mean to be immunocompromised?
Even a seemingly minor threat like the common cold can lead to a serious illness in someone with a compromised immune system.
The Covid-19 pandemic made many people familiar with the term “immunocompromised.” But there is a broad spectrum of vulnerability, according to recent reporting in The New York Times.
Researchers have identified more than 430 so-called primary immunodeficiencies, rare conditions that are caused by genetic variants and weaken the immune system. Some of them can be detected through routine newborn screenings or other blood tests shortly after birth.
Certain chronic conditions such as multiple sclerosis, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and AIDS can also leave people mildly immunocompromised. These diseases are often driven by an overactive immune system that starts damaging the body’s own cells, making it less capable of fighting off actual pathogens, said Carl Fichtenbaum, MD, infectious diseases professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.
He said some of these diseases are treated with high doses of steroids, which reduce inflammation but can weaken the immune system if taken for too long. Others are treated with biologic medicines, which target specific disease pathways that may indirectly affect the immune system.
Normal aging can also weaken the immune system in some ways. As people get older, they tend to produce fewer antibodies to fight off pathogens, and the defenses they do have may be deployed more slowly, said Dr. Fichtenbaum.
Click here to read the entire article in The New York Times.
Featured image at top: Person putting on disposable face mask. Photo/Unsplash.
Latest UC News
- Nippert Stadium: The 1960sBearcats basketball legend Jack Twyman was selected by the Rochester Royals in the second round of the 1955 NBA draft and the franchise moved to Cincinnati in 1957, becoming the Cincinnati Royals. Oscar Robertson would follow in the 1960s, and on his heels wearing red, white, and blue at Cincinnati Gardens were fellow UC stars Tom Thacker and George Wilson. Cincinnati basketball won back-to-back titles in 1961 and 1962 (and nearly grabbed a third, falling to Loyola Chicago in ’63).
- Voices of Injustice share stories of wrongful conviction on a Cleveland stageOhio Innocence Project at UC Law exonerees Michael Sutton, Laurese Glover and Charles Jackson share a painful journey. The men helped formed the advocacy group Voices of Injustice for those wrongfully convicted. The group's performance, 'The Lynchings Among Us' was featured by public radio's WYSO in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
- The nation is watching the U.S. Senate race in OhioCincinnati Edition talks to University of Cincinnati Associate Professor David Niven about the U.S. Senate race in Ohio that is attracting a lot of national attention.
- New climate change health research center under development at UCThe National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health has awarded a grant to the University of Cincinnati to establish the Cincinnati Center for Climate and Health.
- How inflation spiked then returned to target rangeAfter years of disruptions, inflation has decreased and now is near the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2%, ABC News reported. Hernan Moscoso Boedo, an associate professor of economics at the University of Cincinnati’s Carl H. Lindner College of Business, helped explain how the Federal Reserve returned inflation to its target range.
- Chia enchanted long before the petUniversity of Cincinnati ethnobotanist David Lentz will give a talk at the Metropolitan Museum of Art about the role the herb chia played for the ancient Aztec people.