Scientists have developed a method for detecting diseases in a latent phase
In today’s life, people often encounter situations when the organism’s functions are overstrained, and the action of extreme factors causes the development of a stress response. In this situation, there are three stages in the development of the organism’s stress reaction: activation, resistance and exhaustion. It is extremely important to assess the organism’s stress-response stages, since one has to control situations related to the development of adaptation processes when the body’s functional reserves are mobilized and to prevent them from sliding into the exhaustion stage and the development of a pathological process. In addition, it is important in medical practice to objectively evaluate the adaptation resources of the organism when monitoring the treatment process and the course of the disease (exacerbation, remission). However, it is extremely difficult to quantify the state of the stress response in the body. Therefore, the search for information technologies that could be easily implemented in any medical laboratory becomes particularly relevant.
According to Anna Deryugina, Head of the Physiology and Anatomy Department of the Institute of Biology and Biomedicine at the Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod, the experimental studies conducted by the University scientists have revealed that effective criteria for the severity of the body’s stress response are the electrophoretic mobility of red blood cells (RBCs) (actually, it is the cell membrane function related to surface charge), and the analysis of the state of buccal epithelium cells, which is not less sensitive than the test of chromosome aberrations in bone marrow cells of animals. With this analysis, it is possible to evaluate the processes of epithelium proliferation and differentiation, the degree of inflammation and cytogenetic changes. It was shown that RBC electrophoretic mobility reflects the engagement of stress-implementing systems: sympatho-adrenal and pituitary-adrenal, while the state of the buccal epithelium cells is an indicator of the effectiveness of the immune system. The analysis of the RBC electrophoretic mobility and buccal epithelium cells shows that, depending on the intensity of the stress exposure, the gradient of the decrease in the RBC electrophoretic mobility changes, which is associated with an increase in the number of epithelial cells with various pathological changes.
“This study reveals great opportunities for the development of personalized medicine. Firstly, it will be possible to resort to the comprehensive diagnosis of the whole human body only if there is already a recorded fact of the disease, since, on the one hand, it is expensive, and, on the other hand, people are not inclined to spend a lot of time on diagnosis when they feel relatively well. Secondly, the method can be used already at the stage of the onset of the disease. Depending on the different adaptation level of the organism, which is established by using this method, it will be possible to develop tactics for the subsequent treatment of a particular patient ", Anna Deryugina notes.
Thus, using the obtained indicators, it becomes possible to assess whether a compensation reaction aimed at restoring impaired homeostasis develops in the body, or whether body resources are insufficient and adaptation processes may fail leading to the development of some pathology. Timely assessment of stress indicators will help to effectively adjust the body state. At this stage, scientists are conducting research together with other medical institutions of Nizhny Novgorod and expect that this method will receive wide recognition among the medical community.
