Lead immunologic disease

A variety of debilitating diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory myopathies, cancers, and a variety of immunological diseases are treated with the classic synthetic glucocorticoids, dexamethasone, and prednisone. However, long-term treatment with these drugs often leads to serious side effects such as fat redistribution, diabetes, vascular necrosis, and osteoporosis. There is currently an intense effort to identify new small molecules that are able to differentially modulate GR to retain the beneficial effects of glucocorticoids and reduce the incidence of unwanted side effects [10]. 

Glomerulonephritis Glomerular lesions that are characterized by inflammation of the capillary loops of the glomerulus. These lesions are generally caused by immunologic, vascular, or other idiopathic diseases. Glomerulonephritis can lead to high blood pressure and loss of kidney function. 

The response-to-injury hypothesis states that risk factors such as oxidized LDL, mechanical injury to the endothelium, excessive homocysteine, immunologic attack, or infection-induced changes in endothelial and intimal function lead to endothelial dysfunction and a series of cellular interactions that culminate in atherosclerosis. The eventual clinical outcomes may include angina, myocardial infarction, arrhythmias, stroke, peripheral arterial disease, abdominal aortic aneurysm, and sudden death. 

An immunologic basis for chronic beryllium disease has been postulated and a hypersensitivity phenomenon demonstrated. Consistent with the concept of chronic berylliosis as a hypersensitivity pulmonary reaction are the following Persons with berylliosis also show delayed cutaneous hypersensitivity reactions to beryllium compounds their peripheral blood lymphocytes undergo blast transformation and release of macrophage inhibition factor after exposure to beryllium in vitro helper/suppressor T-cell ratios are depressed and there is lack of a dose-response relationship in chronic beryllium cases. Hypersensitization may lead to berylliosis in people with relatively low exposures, whereas nonsensitized individuals with higher exposures may have no effects. 

Immunological Injury. Defects in immunological function may be manifested by such conditions as recurrent infection, autoimmune disease, and lymphoma (129). It is hypothesized that heavy metals may alter the function of sulfur-rich immunoproteins by displacing trace element cofactors (96). Lead burdens in mice, rats, and baboons similar to those... 

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