"ALTRUISTIC DEATH", EVOLUTIONARY SOLUTION TO SAVE THE SPECIES
"ALTRUISTIC DEATH", EVOLUTIONARY SOLUTION TO SAVE THE SPECIES

Summary/Abstract: Because of the state of health emergency in which the planet finds itself caught, we are forced to be interested in notions that were previously foreign to us. The world press publishes molecular medicine and epidemiology articles. The cytokine storm is one of the many concepts that have become familiar to us. But its mechanisms still elude even those working in the field. According to the researchers, in addition to infecting the lung cells, the virus causes damage through direct or indirect infection of the endothelial cells, which are the ones that form the blood vessels that are in the lungs. José Alcamí, researcher at the Carlos III Health Institute, Spain says that our immune system can be thought of as a kind of army, a force that fights against invading microbes. "In the mechanisms of our body there are soluble substances that cells produce: cytokines. They are like projectiles that locate infected cells and selectively destroy them." It is a protective mechanism that occurs in any inflammation and is usually able to stop over time, but there are times when it gets out of control and the production of these cytokines becomes excessive, both quantitatively and qualitatively. "It's like sowing the whole body with grenades: infected cells will be destroyed, in this case by the coronavirus, but there will also be destruction of healthy cells". New increases in the number of those infected and hospitalized with the coronavirus have once again called the cytokine storm concept into question. An uncontrolled reaction of the immune system that has had a fatal outcome for many of the patients with COVID-19.

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