Sweat Might Help Fight Lyme Disease

   

    Lyme disease is a common illness spread by ticks which affects almost 500,000 people in the U.S. every year. While antibiotics usually clear up the infection, some patients deal with lingering symptoms for months or even years. Now, researchers at MIT and the University of Helsinki have found that human sweat contains a protein, SCGB1D2, that can stop the bacteria causing Lyme disease from growing.

    About one-third of people have a genetic variation of this protein that isn’t as effective which makes them more likely to get sick. During the experiments, researchers discovered that the normal version of SCGB1D2 could prevent the bacteria from growing, but the weaker variant wasn’t as successful. Tests on mice showed similar results demonstrating that those exposed to the regular protein stayed healthy, while those exposed to the weaker variant got infected.

    This discovery could lead to new ways of preventing Lyme disease, such as creams that protect the skin, or treatments for cases that don’t respond to antibiotics. Researchers are now working to understand how the protein works and whether it could fight other infections too. This finding shows how something as simple as sweat might play a bigger role in keeping us healthy than we realize. It could even lead to new approaches for dealing with diseases we’ve struggled to treat effectively.

Reference: https://news.mit.edu/2024/protein-found-human-sweat-may-protect-against-lyme-disease-0319 

Reference 2: https://lymediseaseassociation.org/news/protein-in-human-sweat-new-discovery-for-lyme-disease-prevention-and-therapeutics/