“Your immune system in response to COVID-19 infection can become overzealous and go rogue – attacking and killing healthy cells in the body“.

COVID-19 patients suffer lung and heart damage, but there’s encouraging news for many “long-haulers” — COVID-19 patients who have continued showing symptoms for months after the initial infection — report neurological problems including confusion, difficulty concentrating, heart and lung issues, fatigue, insomnia, plus loss of taste and/or smell.

Cytokines are inflammatory immunologic protein

The immune system is there to help us fight infection, but sometimes it wreaks more havoc than the disease itself.

“There is evidence now that the virus can directly attack heart muscle cells, and there’s also evidence that the cytokine storm that the virus triggers in the body not only damages the lungs, but can damage the heart,” according to John Swartzberg, a clinical professor emeritus of infectious diseases and vaccinology in the the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program.

Inflammatory proteins, also known as cytokines, serve as molecular messengers between cells. Cytokines are proteins that are produced by cells and play a crucial role in the immune response. Cytokines interact with cells of the immune system in order to regulate the body’s response to disease and infection, as well as mediate normal cellular processes in the body.

If this immune response is too strong, a phenomenon known as “cytokine storm” can cause harm to the patient. It has been thought that a cytokine storm contributes to disease severity in patients with COVID-19.

“Cytokine storm”…your body may not know how to handle the presence of the coronavirus and overreact.” Reynold Panettieri, M.D., a lung specialist and vice chancellor for translational medicine and science at Rutgers University

With viral infections like COVID-19, our immune system can become overzealous and go rogue – attacking and killing everything in sight, including healthy cells in the body. When “cytokine storm” happens, it may kill severe COVID-19 patients.

“Cytokines are inflammatory immunologic proteins that are there to fight off infections and ward off cancers,” says Randy Cron, M.D., Ph.D, at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, “But when they are out of control, they can make you very ill.” 

While some research has found an elevated presence of cytokines in coronavirus patients, there isn’t enough data to say all rapidly-declining cases of COVID-19 are a result of a cytokine storm–the immune system gone rogue.

References:

1. https://on.mktw.net/3lS0iYS
2. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-09-covid-cytokine-storm.html?ocid=uxbndlbing.
3. https://www.forbes.com/sites/claryestes/2020/04/16/what-is-the-cytokine-storm-and-why-is-it-so-deadly-for-covid-19-patients/#5eb2c364460f
4. https://www.prevention.com/health/a32906012/cytokine-storm-coronavirus/
5. https://www.health.com/condition/infectious-diseases/coronavirus/cytokine-storm