Persistence of inflammatory cytokines cause a spectrum of chronic progressive diseases: Implications for therapy

Two aspects of evolution provide a potential mechanistic basis for this hypothesis. We may speculate that Darwinian selection favored early development of a system that channeled a broad spectrum of external and internal challenges through a generic response system. Thus, the mediators that respond to noxious stimuli became universal throughout organisms and species. Because these genetic responses were part of the DNA programming of all cells prior to differentiation, the tissue response to inflammation is also both uniform in nature, and narrow in scope. Subsequent cell differentiation resulted in vast differences in tissue function, so that organ dysfunction appears with the myriad symptoms and signs we recognize as individual diseases. Interference with inflammatory cytokines, e.g., with HMG Coa reductase inhibitors, inhibits a spectrum of chronic progressive diseases, independent of any LDL lowering effect.