Time Magazine: Inflammation Part 7 of 8

When the Body Attacks Itself 

No doctors have more experience treating chronic inflammation than the physicians who specialize in rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, lupus and other autoimmune disorders. For decades these diseases have provided the clearest example of a body at war with itself. But the spark that fuels their internal destruction doesn't come from excess cholesterol deposits or a stubborn bacterial infection. Instead, in a bizarre twist of fate, the body's supersophisticated, learned immunological defenses mistakenly direct an inflammatory attack against healthy cells in such places as the joints, nerves and connective tissue.

Over the past few years, powerful drugs like Remicade and Enbrel, which target specific inflammatory cytokines, have worked wonders against rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune disorders. But as often happens in medicine, the drugs have also created some problems. Patients who take Remicade, for example, are slightly more likely to develop tuberculosis; the same inflammatory cytokines that attacked their joints, it seems, also protected them against TB.

Inflammation may be more of a problem in the earlier stages of autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis. So much tissue is eventually destroyed that nerve damage becomes permanent. "Your initial goal is to keep the immune response in check, but then you have to ask how you encourage regrowth of damaged tissue," says Dr. Stephen Reingold, vice president for research programs at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. It could take decades to figure that one out.