Increasing the body’s ability to produce lipids in the lungs after damage prevents the progression of pulmonary fibrosis in preliminary studies.
Pulmonary fibrosis, an ongoing process of scarring that leaves patients chronically short of breath, can progress in severity until the only course of treatment is lung transplant. A new study shows that restoring the lipids that help keep lung tissue flexible and inflated can help slow disease progression in laboratory models of pulmonary fibrosis.
“This is the first paper to show that rather than being a ‘second hit’ to help initiate the disease, blocking lipid synthesis alone — with no other insult to the lungs — can instigate fibrotic scaring,” said Ross Summer Professor of Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University and physician-researcher in the Jane and Leonard Korman Respiratory Institute.
