Vaccination halts progression in animal studies.

2003 JUN 4 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), School of Medicine have shown in mice that a vaccine for pneumonia also triggers elements of the immune system to reduce atherosclerosis, the build-up of fatty deposits and chronic inflammation in blood vessels, which leads to heart attacks and stroke.

While pneumococcal vaccination is known to build the body's defenses against bacterial pneumonia, this is the first demonstration that a pneumococcal vaccine can also protect the host from a chronic inflammatory disease process such as atherosclerosis.

In a study published in the June 2003 issue of the journal Nature Medicine, the researchers demonstrated that vaccination with pneumococci microbes, and the resulting immune response triggered by the body, reduced the

extent of atherosclerosis by 21% in laboratory mice that are used as a model for coronary disease.

A complex disease with multiple causes, atherosclerosis has traditionally been considered a disorder caused by excess levels of cholesterol in the body. More recently, scientists have identified the chronic inflammatory process of the disease, with recent studies suggesting that the body's natural immune responses might be able to modulate the progression of atherosclerosis.

The study's first author, Christoph J. Binder, MD, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of co-senior author Joseph Witztum, MD, said "the test of pneumococcal vaccination grew from the team's study of immune responses against oxidized low-density lipoproteins (LDL), the 'bad' cholesterol that leads to plaque buildup in arteries."

For the past 20 years, the Witztum lab at UCSD, in collaboration with UCSD professor of medicine Daniel Steinberg, MD, PhD, has pioneered the role of oxidized LDL as a major contributing factor for the development of atherosclerosis. In particular, the Witztum lab has been studying immunological response to oxidized LDL ...