Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)
by certmd on Friday February 28, 2020 @01:48PM
(#22445215)
From the article (as well as other places I've read similar things).
"Why did so many young adults die? As it happens, young adults have the strongest immune systems, which attacked the virus with every weapon possible—including chemicals called cytokines and other microbe-fighting toxins—and the battlefield was the lung. These “cytokine storms” further damaged the patient’s own tissue."
The more robust immune response was a large cause of the increased mortality.
Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)
by dnautics on Friday February 28, 2020 @05:08PM
(#22446862)
Iirc from my time as a biologist, we don't have any direct evidence that a cytokine storm happened and there seem to be other possible explanations for that distribution.
"Why did so many young adults die? As it happens, young adults have the strongest immune systems, which attacked the virus with every weapon possible—including chemicals called cytokines and other microbe-fighting toxins—and the battlefield was the lung. These “cytokine storms” further damaged the patient’s own tissue."
The more robust immune response was a large cause of the increased mortality.