A Taiwanese medial research team discovered a natural mechanism of the body that could be used to develop new drugs for treating sepsis, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said yesterday.
The team led by National Health Research Institute researchers Kenneth Wu (伍焜玉) and Kuo Cheng-chin (郭呈欽), and Tri-Service General Hospital physician Hsu Yu-Juei (許育瑞) found that blood vessel endothelial cells can produce 5-methoxytryptophan (5-MTP, also known as cytoguardin) — an anti-inflammatory that can reduce inflammatory response in mice with septicemia.
Septicemia is life-threatening bacterial infection that spreads through the vascular system and can progress into sepsis, causing a full-body inflammatory response and can result in organ failure.
On average, someone dies of sepsis every three seconds worldwide, Kuo said, adding that about 50 percent of patients with severe illness died of sepsis.
It is ranked No. 13 in causes of death in Taiwan and there is not effective drug to cure it, Kuo added.
Kuo said the team discovered that 5-MTP released by endothelial cells not only reduces inflammatory response in the vascular system and controls the abnormal activation of inflamed cells, it can also increase the survival rate of mice with septicemia by 80 percent.
He said the team also found that people have 5-MTP in their blood with or without sepsis, but the 5-MTP levels in people with sepsis is about 65 percent lower than healthy people.
Although the injection of 5-MTP into mice with sepsis has suggested that it could be an effective treatment, its effects on the human body would need to be confirmed through research, Kuo said, adding that the 5-MTP is a natural substance in the human body, so it is not toxic.
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