All about Cytokines

Natural ingredients in functional drinks (like the ones InnOrbit produce) often have a profound effect on the human body and biochemical processes. Some of the ingredients can even effect programmed cell-death - apoptosis -  and we focussed on this recently.

In our sister blog we have reported the research that investigators are performing in this area.  Many of the ingredients can "control" biochemicals called cytokines.  Take a look at this article on Licorice for an idea of how natural ayurvedic ingredients work on the body.

Cytokines are the communication system of the body's cells of the immune system and beyond.  The cells communicate via cytokines.

 They can mediate long and short range communication between cells.
In many cases Cytokines are produced by one type of cell and have an effect on another type of cell.

The nomenclature has been adopted to simplify them.

Under the microscope: Leukocytes are the fuzzy irregular shaped cells.  The other cells are mostly Red Blood Cells

Any molecule that communicates between leukocytes (or white blood cells) is known as INTERLEUKIN and is given the prefix IL.  However, this has not been adopted universally and there are molecules which have retained their original name: IFNs (Interferons) and TNFs (Tumour Necrosis Factors).  Normal designations are used as follows: IL-1, IL-2, IL-3 etc.

"IL-1β is a major cytokine driving the inflammatory processes leading to the pathophysiology of osteoarthritis and other inflammatory diseases (see this article on Green Tea)"

So, the nomenclature gets worse.  Investigators soon realised that cytokines can be produced by a whole host of other types of cells!  Further it was shown that the same cytokines are muti-functional in a variety of different tissues.

Cytokines: regulate and coordinate cellular responses throughout the body and not just the immune system.

Example of Cytokine Activity:

As a way of an example on how Cytokines work we can look at TNFs (Tumour Necrosis Factor).
TNFs are multi-tasking cytokines that have several biological functions.

TNFs are implicated in the response to injury and/or infection, amongst other roles.
TNFs can:

• Mediate the killing of infected cells making them cells more susceptible to killing by other cells;
• Trigger the production of other molecules (e.g. prostaglandins) which can induce tumour necrosis (the breakdown or lysis of tumour cells);
• Augment the effect of leukocytes and other blood cells (i.e. their stickiness to other cells);
• Stimulate the resorption of bone by ostoclasts (basically part of the essential process of bone remodelling and reshaping);
• Immuno-regulation - play a role in the body's defense against parasitic, viral & bacterial attack.