Could microbes be to blame for a host of diseases we thought they had nothing to do with? Researchers have found that bacteria in the blood of healthy people may help trigger strokes and heart attacks, and perhaps also contribute to conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes and arthritis.
All of these disorders involve inflammation – a general activation of the immune system that normally serves to fight infection, but that can get out of control and cause damage. These conditions are also all linked to overactive blood clotting, excessive levels of iron in the blood, and sheets of abnormally folded proteins.
No one knows why these traits are linked to so many diseases, but finding out could help us stop them. To see if bacteria could be playing a role in all this, Douglas Kell at the University of Manchester, UK, and Resia Pretorius, at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, have been looking at their ability to disrupt clotting.
But if we could potentially cure so many diseases in one fell swoop, wouldn't that negatively impact the medical-pharmaceutical industry's enormous revenue stream? ;-) To read more, click here.