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Posts Tagged ‘bacterial infections’

Lowering cholesterol levels may help the body’s immune system to fight infections, British researchers said.

A study in mice conducted by researchers at the University of Edinburgh found a direct association between immune function and cholesterol levels.

“We discovered that a key immune hormone stimulated infection can lower cholesterol and thus depriving viral infections support they need to grow,” said Peter Ghazal, whose study was published in the journal Public Library of Science (Plops) Biology.

“Currently there are drugs to lower cholesterol levels, but the next step would be to see whether these drugs might also work to help strengthen our immune systems,” he added.
Doctors commonly prescribe stations such as Lipitor, Pfizer, Crestar, AstraZeneca and a generic called simvastatin to reduce LDL “bad” cholesterol, a risk factor for heart disease. These drugs are considered the most successful in preventing heart attacks and strokes.

Ghazal said there are still many years of research to which these results can be translated into treatments for humans, but in the future could be developed stating drugs such anti-infective purposes.

Today the fight viral infections with drugs that target the mechanism that allows the virus to multiply. Antibiotics are used to fight bacterial infections, but these manage to mutate and develop new strains that are resistant to drugs, causing a constant need for new and more powerful drugs.

Ghazal said his research team hopes to use his studies to figure out new ways to fight infections that may mimic such immune signals sent to reduce the production of cholesterol.

These treatments help to overcome the problem of drug resistance, he said, and would seek to strengthen the way the body responds to infection, rather than focusing on attacking the bacteria.