Delivering Catalase to Treat Sepsis

Sepsis is a state of runaway inflammation in response to infection, a condition that is more serious and more often fatal in older individuals. With age, the immune system becomes every more overactive and inflammatory, reacting to signals created by the damaged environment of the body. This background of chronic inflammation makes it ever less likely that any given incident of greatly raised inflammatory signaling will successfully resolve. Instead inflammation can rage to the point of causing serious harm and organ failure. At present, treatments for sepsis are largely palliative, or focus on removing the infectious agent that caused the underlying immune reaction. This can be too little, too late. Sepsis has a high mortality rate. Some present research and development work goes towards sabotaging the feedback loop of runaway inflammatory signaling, such as by delivering cells that will work to resolve inflammation. This seems promising. Today's open access paper discusses a different approach, however, suppression of oxidative signaling by delivering a natural antioxidant, modified to achieve a greater stability and cell uptake. Oxidative stress, the excessive production of oxidant molecules, goes hand in hand with inflammation in aging tissue, and numerous mechanisms connect oxidative stress to the inflammatory response. It is interesting to see that a suitable antioxidant therapy can make a difference in sepsis. An Antioxidant Enzyme Therapeutic for ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs