Sepsis is the body's overwhelming response
to infection.
More than 250,000 people die of sepsis every
single year.
That's more than HIV, breast cancer and prostate
cancer combined.
So it's a very impactful illness.
We have made strides in improving patient
outcomes when someone develops sepsis, but
depending on the patient condition and other
factors the average mortality rate is still
about forty percent for somebody that develops
severe sepsis or septic shock.
Primarily what I look at is using micronutrients,
specifically zinc, to see how we can improve
the immune system.
And specifically we look at how the immune
system can clear bacteria out of the blood
stream once somebody gets an infection.
And so we're using zinc to try to boost up
the immune system to clear the bacteria and
to help the patient recover from sepsis more
quickly.
We actually now have a clinical study going
on at Ohio State in the medical intensive
care unit that you can be screened for if
you're one of our patients in our ICU where
we determine if you meet certain criteria
you can be given zinc as part of your treatment
course in addition to antibiotics and all
the other standards of care that we use to
treat sepsis.
