The concept, referred to as “disease tolerance,” provided an opportunity to develop new strategies that mitigate the consequences of infection. “TB is a perfect example of disease tolerance,” said Divangahi. Instead, we found that it could imbalance disease tolerance causing extensive tissue damage and ultimately killing the host,” said Divangahi, lead author of the study. “While disease tolerance is an established field of research in simple organisms such as plants, our understanding of this host defense strategy in humans is very limited,” said Divangahi. Although immunologists and vaccinologists have made progress in the study of host resistance to infectious diseases, little is known about the mechanisms of disease tolerance in humans.

Source: Hindustan Times May 13, 2018 09:00 UTC