It has long since been demonstrated that Parkinson's patients have a different microbiome in the intestines than healthy people

The next step is to examine whether, for example, body-first Parkinson's disease can be treated by treating the intestines with faeces transplantation or in other ways that affect the microbiome," says Per Borghammer.

But at the same time, we've been puzzled about why there was such a big difference between patient symptoms.

In other patients, scans revealed damage to the nervous systems of the intestines and heart before the damage in the brain's dopamine system was visible

People diagnosed with REM sleep behaviour syndrome have an increased risk of developing Parkinson's disease.

When T-Cells are activated they release cytokines (yes, that cytokine), which trigger additional T-Cells to be made, which then release even more cytokines. One type of T-cells that are created are called cytotoxic T-cells. Cytotoxic T-cells are the cells that are able to roam the body and mercy kill infected cells who are chemically calling out to be killed and ideally to stop the increased production of viruses like COVID-19.

There are both broadly immunosuppressive approaches, such as high-dose corticosteroids, and more novel targeted approaches that go after inflammatory cytokine proteins

There are also a few effective treatments for cytokine storms despite the fact that we still do not know exactly which treatments will ultimately be developed and recommended across the board for COVID-19 related cytokine storms.

Cytokine storms also can be indicated by liver enzyme abnormalities.

A complete blood count or CBC is a really common standard test.” says Dr. Cron, “And COVID-19 patients, for whatever reason, seem to be very lymphopenic, meaning their lymphocyte count tends to be less than a thousand per microliter.

Luckily, the tests to diagnose cytokine storms are often cheap and readily available in hospitals.

However, most notably, COVID-19 patients are most often dying of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which indicates that COVID-19 related cytokine storms, like the virus, are focused in the lower lung. This leads to the instances of acute pneumonia and the need for intubation and ventilator use.

He explains that many COVID-19 patients also have bleeding or clotting abnormalities as well saying, “COVID-19 seems to have a really high propensity to lead to clots either in deep veins or in the brain or in the lungs, for example

hypotensive

By and large, this first defense is effective and may be why many people who contract COVID-19 are asymptomatic.

When your body responds the way it is supposed to, the cytotoxic T-cells will only target infected cells to be killed and move along. Additionally, the immune response also has a chemical indicator that ideally tells overzealous immune response cells to stand down once the threat has been neutralized. It is when we are in the throes of a cytokine storm that those systems start to get overwhelmed and malfunction. In essence, our body’s immune response gets so amped up that it stops differentiating between infected and healthy cells and attacks everything in its path.

Dr. Cron goes on to explain that the typical mortality rates in adults who develop the syndrome ranges from 50% to 80%.

occasionally, either due to genetic factors or rampant viral infections like COVID-19, our immune system can become overzealous and go rogue - attacking and killing everything in sight, including healthy cells in the body