Hi all,
Inflammation is a topic that has been of my interest for a long time. It is a double edged sword sort of thing. It has to be the right amount, right combination of cytokines and at the right place for it to be useful.
Amazingly, most often human body manages to do that.

'Gary’s theory questions the received wisdom that when a person gets ill, the inflammation that occurs around the infected area helps it to heal. He claims that, in reality, inflammation prevents the body recognising a foreign substance and therefore serves as a hiding place for invaders. The inflammation occurs when at-risk cells produce receptors called At1 (known as angiontensin II type I receptors). While At1 has a balancing receptor, At2,'

I havent followed Gary's papers or work , but from what I read today, this theory doesnt seem right to me. Inflammation is a process that has several components, and proinflammatory cytokines are one part of it and they are the major players. These factors are made in response to infection (Pathogen recognizing receptors called TLR). this is sort of a alarm for the body to know that there are intruders and get ready to defend the body. Wihtout inflammation and subsequent activation of cells, pathogens will not be cleared, vaccines will not work. There is plenty of data supporting this. On the other hand, acute and high level of inflammation is a different story, can lead to even death (Toxic shock syndrome). I agree that chronic and elevated levels of cytokines and other factors do contribute to inflammation, might mislead the immune system and lead to autoimmune responses and other disorders too.

Thanks
Girija

[/I][/I]QUOTE=Ronhutton;466281]The original J.Inflammation article is at

http://www.biomedcentral.com/content...6-9255-1-3.pdf

Ron[/QUOTE]