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For around five million sufferers around the globe, the autoimmune condition lupus makes every day a challenge.
Those with the condition have an immune system that is constantly attacking cells throughout their bodies, from their skin to their internal organs, with thoroughly unpleasant results.
Thankfully we have treatment for this condition, with medication helping sufferers to live their lives without constant pain, suffering, and organ damage.
But the condition couldn’t be prevented, because no one was sure quite what caused the immune systems of these five million people – 90% of them women – to act in such a way.
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Recently, though, things have changed. Researchers at Stanford Medicine have not only identified what happens in a lupus immune system, they’ve also isolated the cause.
In their recent paper, which was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, the scientists explained that the condition is caused by a virus – and incredibly, it’s a virus that 95% of people carry.
Thanks to the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), the cells in a person’s immune system can begin an attack on the body.
While for the majority of people, EBV simply stays dormant in the body from the moment of transmission (through saliva, usually as a child or teen through sharing a drink, for example), for a small number of people, the virus can become activated, causing immune cells to attack the nuclei of ordinary tissue and organ cells.
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So are some people more predisposed to lupus than others, or more vulnerable to EBV and its autoimmune effects?
Not quite; in fact, the researchers believe that it’s actually certain strains of EBV that lead cells to develop these nucleus-destroying (or, antinuclear) properties.
And this, as Stamford’s Dr William Robinson explained in a statement, is big for the lupus community as well as for the prevention of this autoimmune condition:
“This is the single most impactful finding to emerge from my lab in my entire career. We think it applies to 100% of lupus cases.”
With this information at hand, companies are currently working on the development of a vaccine to protect against EBV. But once approved, this will need to be administered shortly after birth, since for the majority of cases, transmission usually occurs in early childhood.
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