Study Finds Blood Precursors To Lupus

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Study

Finds Blood Precursors To Lupus

BOSTON (AP) -- Researchers have found blood antibodies that

can herald the symptoms of lupus years in advance, potentially helping point

the way toward future treatments for the life-threatening immune disease.

" If we are able to identify a pathogen

that triggers this process, then we could set to work on developing new

strategies to stop that pathogen, " said Dr. Harley, the senior

researcher at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation and University of Oklahoma.

The study team, which was supported by the

National Institutes of Health and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs,

reported its findings Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The researchers identified 130 lupus

patients -- either soldiers or veterans -- who had left blood samples in a

military repository. They were matched with similar soldiers who did not

develop lupus.

Before their diagnosis, 88 percent in the

lupus group showed at least one autoantibody, an immune system protein that

mistakenly attacks the body's own tissue during the course of lupus. They

appeared up to nine years before the patients came down with the disease,

suggesting that the process begins insidiously before symptoms become apparent.

About 4 percent of subjects without lupus

showed the autoantibodies.

Dr. Shmerling, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, cautioned in an accompanying commentary that such blood testing

would prove of limited value in screening people for future cases of lupus.

He said such autoantibodies, without visible symptoms of lupus, could point

too often to other diseases or mean nothing at all.

An estimated 1.4 million Americans, mostly women,

have lupus, a chronic disease that turns the body's immune defense system

against its own healthy tissues. Many people afflicted also develop severe

arthritis.

Copyright 2003 The

Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Much Love,

Deanna

LUPUS Serenity Prayer...

Lord,

grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to

change the things I can, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of doctors I shot

when they said, You're perfectly healthy, it's all in your head "