https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2022/01/epstein-barr-...
It really feels at this point that not by connecting these diseases together and treating them as a class, we're missing the woods for the trees. Sadly, all of the economic incentives are to keep treating them separately and reductively because chronic diseases are great long-term revenue generators. TBC, I'm not attacking the drug companies here (UC was a killer until pred was discovered in the 1950s and Vedolizumab is working fantasically well for me) but we need the immune system to be treated as genuine clinical and research discipline to really cure these things.
My last UC flare was preceeded by a bout of shingles which is caused by an opportunistic latent virus. My doctors always talk of my immune system as being over-active. It really seems to me that it's more the immune system becoming disordered - which latent viruses play a major role in. My docs aren't remotely interested in having that discussion because it doesn't involve the details of gut epithelial cells. Fascinating as they are, I don't think we're going to cure UC or any other AI disease by focusing on them.