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New diseases
contents
- How dangerous are new diseases?
- How often do scientists discover new diseases?
- The Viking gene
- Symptoms of "broken heart syndrome"
- In the footsteps of the Northmen
- poliomyelitis
- Genetic AIDS
- tuberculosis suspicion
- High age of the patients
- Lyme disease
- Super Virus
"What we are seeing at the moment is more and more like a dramatic increase in the threat of new and resurgent infectious diseases," said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan at the 69th World Health Assembly. And she added, "The world is not prepared enough to cope with it."
Again and again new diseases are discovered. Picture: fotofabrika - fotolila For others, it is not clear whether it is really a disease or just a very rare mutation. So doctors from the University Hospital in Ulm noticed a child who was never full. The glutton already weighed more than 40 kilos when he was 3 years old.
The physicians gave him an artificially produced hormone leptin. After that it ate less and decreased.
The University of Ulm called the phenomenon a "new disease". But the experts of the "German Society of Internal Medicine" avoided this term. Instead, they spoke of an "absolute rarity" and considered it unlikely to be able to help other obese with the hormone.
How dangerous are new diseases?
When scientists discover a new ailment, they first appreciate how dangerous it is. They therefore classify the pathogen in a biological safety level from BL1 to BL4. BL4 are the most dangerous, including Ebola, for example.
Next, the researchers decipher the structure of the proteins. The pathogen can be assigned to a group of diseases, and so can develop antidotes.
How often do scientists discover new diseases?
Professor Jörg Hacker from Würzburg says: "On average, a new infectious disease is added every year." On the one hand, this is due to better diagnostics, especially genetic engineering.
Another reason, however, is the population growth, the number of people would have quadrupled in a century. They moved closer together, huge slums without sewers promoted epidemics and huge slaughterhouses spread animal diseases.
The humans push in almost every corner of the earth and thus come in contact with almost all animals and plants, and thus with its pathogens, says Prof. Reinhard Kurth from the Berlin Robert Koch Institute. The monkeypox had emerged in Central Africa, for example, only where the forest was cleared.
The Viking gene
Some patients with bowel problems also suffer from their heart muscle not working. No conventional method has so far been able to relieve their symptoms.
Canadian researchers found a genetic defect that causes such heart disease. The scientists from Quebec recognized that certain complaints in the stomach and intestine were only similar to known illnesses. The cause, however, was a genetic disorder that no one else knew.
They called the disease Broken Heart Syndrome. The cause is a mutation of the gene SGOL1. This mutation causes the nerve and muscle cells in the intestinal and heart tissues to age and die faster. Therefore, the organs no longer function as before.
The researchers showed that this gene mutation causes heart and intestinal disease and is a syndrome of its own. The official name is "Chronic Atrial and Intestinal Dysrhythmia Syndrome (CAID)".
Symptoms of "broken heart syndrome"
For those affected, the heart beats very slowly. These contractions of the heart are necessary to move the intestine. He stands still now, and the sufferers suffer great pain. Those affected need pacemakers and have to undergo heavy surgery.
In the footsteps of the Northmen
The gene mutation probably goes back to the Vikings. The genetic analysis of patients referred to traces that lead to northern Europe in the 12th century. Probably the Vikings brought this altered genome with them when they swarmed to Europe and begat offspring.
poliomyelitis
For the past four years, a new form of polio has been rampant in the US - affecting hundreds of people.
At first the doctors were groping in the dark. But Charles Chiu and his team from the University of California found a main suspect: The enterovirus EV-D68 triggers respiratory diseases - but presumably also polio.
The doctors found the virus in the secretions and in the blood of affected children.
Ev-D68 has been known since 1960. So far, however, it rarely led to serious diseases. In 2014, however, the virus struck - it was probably mutated.
The virus found in those affected by polio also belongs to the mutated form EV-D68-B1. He has only been known for four years. Its structure is similar to the poliovirus and the virus EV-D70. It damages the nerves. B1 occurred at the outbreak of Enterovirus 2014 and is believed to be responsible for the cases of polio.
However, only a part of the patients fell ill with polio. Obviously, a stable immune system protects those affected from paralysis.
The virus can not be fought so far, and there is no vaccine.
Genetic AIDS
AIDS, the "acquired immune deficiency syndrome", an acquired immune deficiency, causes the body getting worse and worse under control of invading pathogens.
Superbugs. Image: psdesign1 - fotolia Physician Sarah Browne and her team examined 203 patients in Thailand and Taiwan who were apparently suffering from AIDS. Then came the surprise: None of those affected was HIV positive. The T helper cells, defense cells that destroy AIDS, remained undamaged.
However, 88 out of 100 patients had auto-antibodies in their blood. These are antibodies that directs the immune system against its own body cells. The cause is a genetic disorder. So it was an autoimmune disease that was innate and not acquired.
Like AIDS, the newly discovered immunodeficiency is a chronic disease.
These autoantibodies blocked the protein interferon-gamma. It is formed by the T helper cells and necessary to ward off pathogens. If it is missing, then bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites invade unhindered.
The disease is known since 2004, victims are mainly Asian, but individual sufferers are also from the United States
tuberculosis suspicion
Patients often suffer from tuberculosis bacteria that cause lung disease. That's why Sarah Browne says the autoimmune weakness would have existed for a long time but would be confused with tuberculosis. The doctor says that there is a genetic disposition, infections would then lead to the onset of the disease.
Despite the suspected genetic makeup, there are no known families in which the disease is more prevalent. The immune deficiency is also not transmitted from person to person.
High age of the patients
None of the patients was under 50 years old. This indicates that the disease probably "slumbers" for years until it breaks out - just like AIDS. An infection, be it caused by a virus, by fungi or bacteria, may trigger the disease process, but it will take years until the immune system is really weakened.
Like AIDS, the weakened immune system leads to death in the long run. Some of the people examined by Browne died in the meantime.
As with AIDS, only the effects of immunodeficiency can be alleviated. Antibiotics help against the corresponding infections.
Cancer medicine offers hope: Certain anticancer drugs slow down the production of antibodies.
Lyme disease
American scientists discovered a new Borrelia species. These bacteria cause Lyme disease in humans; the symptoms differ significantly from other Lyme disease pathogens.
In addition to Borrelia burgdorferi, there is now a second species that transmits this particular form of Lyme disease, and the researchers named it after their hospital, the Mayo Clinic, Borrelia mayonii.
The new species is closely related to burgdorferi, but the copy number of the oppA1 gene is 180 times higher.
Six patients suffered from the newly discovered pathogen. Like the well-known Lyme disease, fever, headache and neck pain were among the symptoms. The rash was not like in Lyme disease usual in the form of a red circle, but without a firm limit; There were also significantly more pathogens in the blood than usual.
The scientists suspect that the bacterium lives only in Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota.
Borrelia mayonii can be detected with common Lyme disease tests and treated with Lyme disease treatment.
Super Virus
Super-pathogens are immune to therapies. In the US, there was now such a nightmare of doctors. A 49-year-old suffered from urinary tract infection; The culprit was an E-coli bacterium that was immune to all antibiotics. The pathogen has a gene that protects it from antibiotics, the Mcr-1 gene.
The WHO has long warned that antibiotics are less and less protecting against ever-changing pathogens. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)
Specialist supervision: Barbara Schindewolf-Lensch (doctor)