Complementing COVID Will Get You in Trouble

   The intense race to understand COVID and the wide breadth of body systems which are affected by this coronavirus is pushing forward research in all areas of medicine.  With the apparently increased clotting rate leading to more severe disease, many are investigating a branch of our immune system called the complement system.  The fact that patients with macular degeneration appear to have more severe cases of COVID further encouraged this area of research as this eye disease has a higher rate of complement system activation.  The connections are too suspicious to ignore.

            The research is only beginning to uncover the how it occurs, but the coronaviruses protein similarities to proteins in the complement system may underlie how it can trigger such blood clotting.  Hopefully, a better understanding will lead to better therapy.  As that research story unfolds, the Immune Prepper course equips enrollees to optimize their immune defenses and better understand how their immune system defends them from COVID and other microbial invaders.

            Come back for other learning links for the Complement System.

Original article:
Vijendra Ramlall, Phyllis M. Thangaraj, Cem Meydan, Jonathan Foox, Daniel Butler, Jacob Kim, Ben May, Jessica K. De Freitas, Benjamin S. Glicksberg, Christopher E. Mason, Nicholas P. Tatonetti, Sagi D. Shapira. Immune complement and coagulation dysfunction in adverse outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Nature Medicine, 2020; DOI: 10.1038/s41591-020-1021-2

Thanks to Science Daily:

Columbia University Irving Medical Center. “Ancient part of immune system may underpin severe COVID.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 3 August 2020. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200803092123.htm>.