Researchers say the key to reversing lupus may be a combination of two existing drugs.

Readers’ interest in a story about lupus research has been high since the article first appeared in February 2015.

Interest skyrocketed again when the research was mentioned at a conference in Cuba a few months later.

There was another uptick in interest when singer Selena Gomez announced last year she had received chemotherapy treatments for lupus.

Earlier this year, Gomez announced she is donating proceeds from ticket sales of her Revival Tour to the Alliance for Lupus Research.

Here’s a sampling of the comments left by readers affected by lupus.

Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease that can damage any part of the body, from the skin, to the joints, to the organs.

There is no cure for lupus, a disease that flares up and then seems to disappear before returning again.

About 1.5 million people in the United States, and 5 million people worldwide, live with the disease, according to the Lupus Foundation of America. About 16,000 new cases are diagnosed each year in the United States.

A two-drug combo

Researchers said early last year they discovered that by using a combination of two drugs that already exist, it was possible to reverse the effects of lupus in mice.

In the February 2015 study published in Science Translational Medicine, researchers from the University of Florida, Gainesville, found that by inhibiting certain metabolic pathways in immune cells it was possible to combat lupus in mice.

Systemic lupus erythematosus, or lupus, is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system — which is supposed to protect the body from outside invaders — attacks the body’s own tissues, causing inflammation. Lupus can sometimes have similar symptoms to arthritis.

One marker of lupus is defective helper T cells, white blood cells that activate other immune cells. These T cells eat glucose and oxygen in order to produce energy.

For people with lupus, T cell metabolism is hyperactivated. Hyperactivated T cells mean increased inflammation, and for people with lupus, that means more physical damage.

The two drugs researchers tried in the 2015 study have been shown to inhibit metabolic pathways before, but the combination seems to be the key to success.

“The most surprising result from this study was that the combination of the two metabolic inhibitors was necessary to reverse disease, when it could have been predicted based on models published by others that either one alone would work,” said study co-author Laurence Morel, Ph.D., director of experimental pathology and a professor of pathology, immunology, and laboratory medicine in the University of Florida College of Medicine, in an email to Healthline.

Read More: Do I have Lupus or RA, and What’s the Difference? »