C-Reactive Protein and Cushing's
C-Reactive Protein and Cushing's
Alicia writes: "I came across this article about c-reactive protein. I was interested in it because I have elevated c-reactive protein, and that has thrown the doctors off because they think that that means I have some underlying autoimmune thing going on. Well this article is really interesting. They actually looked at the molecular shape of c-reactive protein in six disease states, Cushing's being one of them, and found that c-reactive protein actually changes "shape" (and if you know a little bit about molecular chemistry and proteins then you know that shape is very important to how proteins are able to function) in certain disease states. So, in Cushing's disease they found that two carbohydrate groups are actually missing off the protein. Now c-reactive protein is active in our bodeis in the acute inflammation process and is a necessary part of the immune system. They didn't go into this specifically, but they talked about the protein's decreased ability to bind to its targets due to these missing pieces, and I was thinking this may be a huge piece of why people with Cushing's have "weakened immune systems." They didn't really delve into those aspects specifically though as their research was really cutting edge, the first time anyone had ever looked at the molecular shape and hypothesized that it might be different in diseased states. This article was in 2003, and not in the US, so I am really hoping that there has been more research since then. And ultimately, wouldn't it be great if a "test" for Cushing's could come out of this research, just by isolating someone's CRP and looking for these very specific changes. I will put the link to the article in the post, but I am warning you it is a very dense article and even I skimmed over most of their methodology, but I would recommend reading the introduction and the conclusion, they are both moderately easy to follow along."
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Alicia writes: "I came across this article about c-reactive protein. I was interested in it because I have elevated c-reactive protein, and that has thrown the doctors off because they think that that means I have some underlying autoimmune thing going on. Well this article is really interesting. They actually looked at the molecular shape of c-reactive protein in six disease states, Cushing's being one of them, and found that c-reactive protein actually changes "shape" (and if you know a little bit about molecular chemistry and proteins then you know that shape is very important to how proteins are able to function) in certain disease states. So, in Cushing's disease they found that two carbohydrate groups are actually missing off the protein. Now c-reactive protein is active in our bodeis in the acute inflammation process and is a necessary part of the immune system. They didn't go into this specifically, but they talked about the protein's decreased ability to bind to its targets due to these missing pieces, and I was thinking this may be a huge piece of why people with Cushing's have "weakened immune systems." They didn't really delve into those aspects specifically though as their research was really cutting edge, the first time anyone had ever looked at the molecular shape and hypothesized that it might be different in diseased states. This article was in 2003, and not in the US, so I am really hoping that there has been more research since then. And ultimately, wouldn't it be great if a "test" for Cushing's could come out of this research, just by isolating someone's CRP and looking for these very specific changes. I will put the link to the article in the post, but I am warning you it is a very dense article and even I skimmed over most of their methodology, but I would recommend reading the introduction and the conclusion, they are both moderately easy to follow along."
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posted by MaryO at
10:54 AM
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