{"id":14492,"date":"2024-10-10T09:02:18","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T09:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=14492"},"modified":"2024-10-10T09:23:58","modified_gmt":"2024-10-10T09:23:58","slug":"what-does-it-mean-to-be-immunocompromised","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=14492","title":{"rendered":"What Does It Mean to Be Immunocompromised?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A growing number of American adults have weakened immune systems, which can leave them vulnerable to severe illnesses.<\/p>\n

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Kaley Karaffa had just turned 28 when the reality of having a weakened immune system as a cancer patient started to sink in. A few weeks earlier, at an annual medical exam, Ms. Karaffa had expressed concern to her doctor about enlarged lymph nodes near her collarbone. Testing showed that Ms. Karaffa had a type of B-cell lymphoma, a cancer that affects the white blood cells, which are essential to fighting off infections.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to become cautious about who I saw, the activities I was involved in and even the kind of food I ate,\u201d Ms. Karaffa, who is now 38, said.<\/p>\n

Even a seemingly minor threat like the common cold can lead to a serious illness in someone with a compromised immune system.For Ms. Karaffa, getting sick would also mean having to pause the clinical trial she was participating in to receive cancer treatment.<\/p>\n

The Covid-19 pandemic made many people familiar with the term \u201cimmunocompromised.\u201d But while public health messaging around Covid, flu season or even food-borne illness outbreaks<\/a> may make those who are immunocompromised sound like a homogenous group with the same kinds of conditions and a similarly high risk of illness, there is a broad spectrum of vulnerability.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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And their numbers appear to be going up. A study<\/a> published this year suggests that about 7 percent of U.S. adults \u2014 or about 18 million people \u2014 have immune systems that are suppressed in some way, up from about 3 percent in 2013. Researchers have different theories to explain the rise in immune suppression. Some believe it may be caused by an increase in autoimmune diseases, while others blame increasing rates of cancer and chronic diseases that require immunosuppressive treatment and the broader use of medications that can impact the immune system.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s no longer a niche group,\u201d said Dr. Joshua Hill, a specialist who treats infectious diseases in immunocompromised cancer patients at Fred Hutch Cancer Center in Seattle. \u201cThese are people walking around in the community that you might not know are immunocompromised,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

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A growing number of American adults have weakened immune systems, which can leave them vulnerable to severe illnesses.Kaley Karaffa had just turned 28 when the reality of having a weakened immune system as a cancer patient started to sink in. A few weeks earlier, at an annual medical exam, Ms. Karaffa had expressed concern to her doctor about enlarged lymph nodes near her collarbone. Testing showed that Ms. Karaffa had a type of B-cell lymphoma, a cancer that affects the white blood cells, which are essential to fighting off infections.\u201cI had to become cautious about who I saw, the activities I was involved in and even the kind of food I ate,\u201d Ms. Karaffa, who is now 38, said.Even a seemingly minor threat like the common cold can lead to a serious illness in someone with a compromised immune system.For Ms. Karaffa, getting sick would also mean having to pause the clinical trial she was participating in to receive cancer treatment.The Covid-19 pandemic made many people familiar with the term \u201cimmunocompromised.\u201d But while public health messaging around Covid, flu season or even food-borne illness outbreaks may make those who are immunocompromised sound like a homogenous group with the same kinds of conditions and a similarly high risk of illness, there is a broad spectrum of vulnerability.And their numbers appear to be going up. A study published this year suggests that about 7 percent of U.S. adults \u2014 or about 18 million people \u2014 have immune systems that are suppressed in some way, up from about 3 percent in 2013. Researchers have different theories to explain the rise in immune suppression. Some believe it may be caused by an increase in autoimmune diseases, while others blame increasing rates of cancer and chronic diseases that require immunosuppressive treatment and the broader use of medications that can impact the immune system.\u201cIt\u2019s no longer a niche group,\u201d said Dr. Joshua Hill, a specialist who treats infectious diseases in immunocompromised cancer patients at Fred Hutch Cancer Center in Seattle. \u201cThese are people walking around in the community that you might not know are immunocompromised,\u201d he added.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14494,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14492"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14495,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14492\/revisions\/14495"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}