Chances are, you never heard of cytokines until the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the world. That’s when most of us learned that these important signaling molecules can set our immune system on a fatal overdrive.
Dr. David Hanscom and 10 co-authors discuss this problem—and its many critical dimensions—in a white paper called “Lowering Inflammation Lengthens Life.” Among other points in the paper, they highlight that the main danger with COVID-19 wasn’t the rate of infection, but its “high potential to trigger a fatal, inflammatory response.” That response came in the form of a cytokine storm.
Cytokines are small proteins used for cell signaling. They play a variety of roles in the body, but one of the most important—and problematic—is their role in activating an immune response….