Archive for the ‘research’ Category

Researchers Discover Balsam Fir Needles Kills Ticks

https://www.globallymealliance.org/news/balsam-fir-needles-can-kill-ticks-that-cause-lyme-disease-dalhousie-researcher

Researchers Discover a Plant that Kills Lyme Disease Causing Ticks

by Admin at Global Lyme Alliance on August 24, 2022

<span id="hs_cos_wrapper_name" class="hs_cos_wrapper hs_cos_wrapper_meta_field hs_cos_wrapper_type_text" style="" data-hs-cos-general-type="meta_field" data-hs-cos-type="text" >Researchers Discover a Plant that Kills Lyme Disease Causing Ticks</span>
New study concludes oil in balsam fir needles is effective in preventing ticks from surviving winter

Written by CBC News. Photo credit @Amal El Nabbout

When Nova Scotia scientist Shelley Adamo noticed ticks avoid balsam fir trees, her professional instincts kicked in.

Adamo, a professor in the department of psychology and neuroscience at Dalhousie University in Halifax, said she noticed ticks often didn’t survive winter on her South Shore property which has thick stands of balsam fir trees.

Adamo said she had a “realistic hunch” that she should study the effects of balsam fir trees on Ixodes scapularis, the blacklegged tick that is a vector for Lyme disease. First discovered in Lyme, Conn., in the 1970s Lyme disease is now a common tick-borne disease that can cause fever, joint pain, rash and other longer-lasting effects.

The results of a three-year study into how balsam fir needles could help control tick populations was published on July 29 in Scientific Reports. Adamo spoke to Emma Smith of CBC Radio’s Mainstreet NS about what she discovered.

What did you do to determine that these balsam fir needles could could kill blacklegged ticks? 

We tested them by collecting ticks and then we would put them in incubators and give them like a winter kind of experience.

We put them in tubes and then we put the balsam fir in with them and they died.

Then we tried it outdoors as well. So we worked with people at the Harrison Lewis Centre who were very good to us. They’re down in the Port Joli area between Liverpool and Shelburne, a real hotspot for Lyme.

We collected the ticks locally so we weren’t adding ticks at least, and we put them in their own little tubes so they couldn’t get out. But it was mesh so that snow and rain could fall in.

We put them in the tubes with balsam fir and put them out in December and collected them in March and we looked to see who lived and who died.

Some ticks got a little layer of oak and maple leaves, which is what they like. And some of them got a layer of of balsam fir. The ones that got to live with the balsam fir needles died. Pretty much all of them.

This could be a natural-product way to try to reduce the load of these potentially Lyme carrying ticks.

When you collected those tubes in the spring, the ones that had the maple and oak leaves, were those tick still alive?

They don’t all live. But surprisingly for ticks that evolved much further south, they actually can survive fairly well in in our Nova Scotian winters.

We vary quite a bit from year to year but our survival in the maple and oak was sometimes 60 per cent, sometimes 80 per cent, whereas the survival in the balsam fir was basically zero.

To read the full story from CBC News, click here.

To read GLA’s blogs, click here.

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For more:

Category:

Prevention, research, Ticks

Gallic Acid for Lyme Study

https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/23/19/10987

Inhibition of Borrelia Burgdorferi-Induced TLR2-NFκB Canonical Signaling by Gallic Acid through Targeting the CD14+ Adaptor Protein and p65 Molecule

by Anna Goc*, Matthias Rath and Aleksandra Niedzwiecki*
Department of Infectious Diseases, Dr. Rath Research Institute, San Jose, CA 95138, USA
*Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Natália Cruz-Martins
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2022, 23(19), 10987; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms231910987
Received: 29 August 2022 / Revised: 12 September 2022 / Accepted: 14 September 2022 / Published: 20 September 2022
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Molecular Mechanisms of Anti-inflammatory Phytochemicals 2.0)

Abstract

The cases of Lyme disease caused by Borrelia burgdorferi infection have been increasing throughout Northern America and Europe. This pathogen, if not treated in a timely manner with antibiotics, can cause persisting and debilitating health outcomes. In the search for novel agents against B. burgdorferi, we investigated a phenolic compound—gallic acid—for its anti-Borrelia and anti-inflammatory effects. Our results showed its biocidal effect starting from 100 μg/mL against active spirochetes, persisters/round-shaped bodies, and biofilm like aggregates of B. burgdorferi sensu stricto. Activation of macrophages by live B. burgdorferi also resulted in a robust NFκB-dependent proinflammatory responses seen in increased production of cytokines. Using human CD14+ macrophages in vitro, we showed that CD14+ adaptor and phosphorylated p65 molecule are impeded at nonbiocidal and noncytotoxic concentrations of gallic acid, resulting in the inhibition of both expression and secretion of cytokines IL1β, IL6, and TNFα. Our findings demonstrate efficacy of gallic acid against B. burgdorferi and provide potential mechanistic insight into its TLR2/CD14+-NFκB mediated mode of action. Further studies on the potential of gallic acid as a safe and effective compound against Borrelia-caused infection are warranted. View Full-Text
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**Comment**
Gallic acid is an antioxidant and phenolic compound found in many foods including:
  • numerous fruits (strawberries, grapes, bananas, blueberries, apples, mangos, pomegranates, mulberries, guavas, blackcurrants, and avocados)
  • nuts: walnuts, cashews, hazelnuts
  • red wine
  • green tea

It’s been known that it may help modulate the immune system and act as a natural defense against microbial infections including foodborne pathogens like Campylobacter, Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes, and Staphylococcus aureus, and pseudomonas, as well as a bacteria found in your mouth called Streptococcus mutans.  It also appears to be anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, reduce oxidative stress and fat storage in the obese by improving insulin signaling, and neuroprotective.   Source

This recent study showed that Quercus infectoria gall (Aleppo Oak) and its active constituent, gallic acid, showed remarkable activity against vaginal pathogens: Candida spp., Gardnerella vaginalis, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus agalactiae, Trichomonas vaginalis and Lactobacillus acidophilus.  

The study mentions: The antimicrobial and anti-trichomonas activity of extract was more than gallic acid. It seems that ethanolic extract of Quercus infectoria gall could inhibit the growth of vaginal pathogens.

Regarding this specific small tree, galls form on young branches when gall wasps sting the tree and deposit their larvae causing a chemical reaction with resulting hard balls (galls) to be formed.  These galls contain the highest naturally occurring level of tannin, as well as a number of other compounds including about 2-4% of gallic and ellagic acid.  Once again showing the marvels of nature in producing things that help human health.

Category:

Lyme, research, Treatment

Hottest Lyme Disease Treatment Update 2022

https://www.treatlyme.net/guide/hottest-lyme-treatment-updates-2022  Video Here (Approx. 11 Min)

Hottest Lyme Disease Treatment Updates in 2022

Marty Ross MD on Top Lyme Treatment Updates of 2022

In the video in the link above Marty Ross MD describes the latest Lyme disease treatment updates in his integrative medicine practice. For more information about the topics discussed in the video article see the following resources:

Dr. Ross’s new book, Hacking Lyme Disease: An Action Guide to Wellness, will be released by early December 2022.

Disclaimer

The ideas and recommendations on this website and in this article are for informational purposes only. For more information about this, see the sitewide Terms & Conditions.

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**Comment**

Dr. Ross discusses peptides. These are not antimicrobials but help the body in fighting off infections and restoring the issues infections cause.  Ross as well as Dr. Holtdorf is evidently having a lot of success with them.

Ross also discusses biofilm busters such as lumbrokinase, which helps improve circulation, decrease muscle pain, and improve medicine delivery deep into tissues.  Those with hypercoagulation would also do well to check it out.  

A golden nugget he discussed was the finding that cryptolepis, a drug normally given for Babesia, also has action against Lyme (in vitro – or the lab, which may not transfer over to the human body or in vivo) This study also found that black walnut, Japanese knotweed, sweet wormwood, ccat’s claw, Cistus incanus, and Chinese skullcap at 1% extracts had good activity against Bb’s stationary phase compared to control antibiotics doxycycline and cefuroxime.

Important note: The minimum inibitory concentration (MIC) values of Artemisia annua, Juglans nigra, and Uncaria tomentosa were quite high for the growing phase of Bb, despite their strong activity against the non-growing stationary phase. On the other hand, the top two active herbs, Cryptolepis and Japanese Knotweed showed strong activity against both growing Bb and non-growing stationary phase.  In subculture studies, only 1% Cryptolepis extract caused complete eradication, while doxycycline and cefuroxime and other active herbs could not eradicate B. burgdorferi stationary phase cells as many spirochetes were visible after 21-day subculture.

Ross states both herbs are helpful for Bartonella as well as diflucan/fluconazole.  My LLMD had us pulse diflucan twice a week throughout our entire treatment (5 years).  I can say with experience we herxed on this drug, often.  It is a known anti-fungal; however, Dr. Hoffman (RIP) stated he believed it did far more than that, and I tend to agree having taken it.

In contrast, the study showed that Stevia rebaudiana, Andrographis paniculata, Grapefruit seed extract, colloidal silver, monolaurin, and antimicrobial peptide LL37 had little or no activity against stationary phase B. burgdorferi.  A few years ago all kinds of headlines came out that stevia cured Lyme. Nothing could be further from the truth.  Per usual, if something seems too good to be true, it usually is.

Dr. Klinghardt uses a sublingual form of Hyaluronic Acid to fool the cyst forms to open and become spirochetes so they can be killed by antimicrobials.  For more on Klinghardt’s treatment:  Klinghardt Lyme Protocol.

Hyaluronic Acid is a type of sugar molecule.  Many other Lyme literate doctors also use forms of sugar such as Stevia or Erythritol as “cyst busters,” in their treatment regimens.  Look for reputable sources of Erythritol as it is most commonly made with GMO cornstarch.

For more:

Category:

Babesia, Bartonella, Biofilm, Candida, Herbs, Lyme, research, Supplements, Treatment

Imaging Techniques Reveal Brain Abnormalities From Post-Treatment Lyme Disease

https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2022/11/imaging-techniques-reveal-brain-abnormalities-from-post-treatment-lyme-disease?

Imaging techniques reveal brain abnormalities from post-treatment Lyme disease

By VICKY ZHU | November 8, 2022  

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COURTESY OF MATT HAUGHEY / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Brain imaging techniques can help scientists understand what is going on inside the heads of patient populations.

In their recent study published in PLOS ONE, Dr. John Aucott and Cherie Marvel found that unexpected white matter activity in the brain, a symptom normally considered pathological, was found to be correlated with better outcomes in patients with post-treatment Lyme disease (PTLD).

PTLD occurs in patients who have received treatments for Lyme disease but have yet to fully recover. Persistent complaints about cognitive difficulty are one of the symptoms.

Aucott is an associate professor in the Division of Rheumatology at the School of Medicine. He is also the director of the Lyme Disease Clinical Research Center and a clinical-translational researcher in Lyme disease with a focus on PTLD.

He stressed that PTLD affects 10% to 20% of patients who were previously diagnosed with and treated for Lyme disease in an interview with The News-Letter.

“Post-treatment Lyme disease is not a trivial problem. It is a problem that should be noticed,” he said.

Marvel is a cognitive neuroscientist and an associate professor of Neurology at the School of Medicine. She has been using brain imaging methods to look at different cognitive and motor functions, primarily in clinical populations.

In an interview with The News-Letter, Marvel noted that the complaints of PTLD patients did not align well with the standard cognitive or neuro-psychological testing.

“So we thought we should look inside the brain. The way we can do that non-invasively is through functional MRI,”she said.

Participants were asked to perform working memory tasks while their brain activity was recorded by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). fMRI measures brain activity by detecting increased oxygen level in areas of activation.

Aucott highlighted that the decision to use an fMRI test for the study was intentional.

“The mystery behind post-treatment Lyme disease is whether there is something biological going on. Tests that are normally available to clinicians, such as regular MRI or CT, scans can’t identify these,“ he said. “So we hypothesized that stress tests under fMRI would be more sensitive to any biological changes.”

All participants performed two tasks. The easier task, which was the control condition, required participants to remember two letters for a short duration. After, the screen would show a new letter, and the participant would need to evaluate whether it was one of the two letters previously shown.

The harder task, which was the experimental condition, required participants to count two alphabetical letters forward of the same two letters and remember the new letters. Then, they were asked if a newly-appeared letter was one of the two new letters.   (See link for article)

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**Comment**

It is disingenuous to use the PTLD moniker for many reasons:

  1. It denies persistent infection
  2. It only includes the smaller subset of patients that have bee diagnosed and treated early and omits the larger subset of patients that are diagnosed and treated late
  3. Those with persistent symptoms may develop secondary psychosomatic & psychiatric disorders.  By using the PTLD moniker, treatment will only address the secondary conditions, but continue to deny life-saving antimicrobials
This is crucial because ignoring these facts will only propagate the continuing under-treatment (or denying treatment altogether) of severely ill patients

SUMMARY:

  • The researchers found expected brain activity in the gray matter but also in the white matter, which wasn’t expected.
  • White matter cells communicate signals between gray matter.
  • The finding caused the researchers to look more closely at the phenomenon.
  • Axial diffusivity (water leaking along the axon) is how the neurons relay electrical signals to each other and increased axial diffusivity was correlated with better outcomes and few symptoms.
  • Aucott states this response appears to be the body’s compensatory response to slower cognitive functions and is similar to a positive response to injury.
  • The researchers want to follow patients longitudinally as well as look for inflammatory markers through cerebral fluid samples.

Category:

Lyme, Psychological Aspects, research

Anaplasma, Babesia odocoilei, and Lyme in Ticks – Found Widely Across Eastern Canada

https://www.jelsciences.com/articles/jbres1586.pdf

Tick-Borne Pathogens Anaplasma phagocytophilum, Babesia odocoilei, and Borrelia burgdorferi Sensu Lato in Blacklegged Ticks Widespread across Eastern Canada

John D Scott1 *, Elena McGoey2 and Risa R Pesapane2,3*

Corresponding author(s) John D Scott, Upper Grand Tick Centre, 365 St. David Street South, Fergus, Ontario N1M 2L7, Canada E-mail: jkscott@bserv.com DOI: 10.37871/jbres1586 Submitted: 13 October 2022 Accepted: 26 October 2022 Published: 27 October 2022 Copyright: © 2022 Scott JD, et al. Distributed under Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0

Abstract

Blacklegged ticks, Ixodes scapularis, can transmit single or multiple infections during a tick bite. These tick-borne, zoonotic infections can become chronic and cause insidious diseases in patients.

In the present tick-pathogen study, 138 (48.9%) of 282 ticks collected from 17 sites in 6 geographic area in eastern Canada harbored various combinations of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (Lyme disease), Anaplasma phagocytophilum (human anaplasmosis), and Babesia spp. (human babesiosis). Overall, 167 microbial infections were detected and, of these, 25 ticks had co-infections and two ticks had polymicrobial infections.

  • the prevalence of Babesia spp. was 15.2%
  • the ratio of Babesia odocoilei to Babesia microti was 41 to 1 with this sole B. microti being detected in Nova Scotia
  • we provide the first documentation of B. odocoilei in the Maritimes
  • Eastern Ontario had an infection prevalence for B. odocoilei of 25%―the highest among the areas surveyed in this study
  • the predominant Babesia sp. was B. odocoilei

Based on our findings, health-care practitioners need to recognize that I. scapularis ticks removed from patients may be carrying multiple tick-borne pathogens.  (See link for article)

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For more:

  • https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2021/05/28/study-shows-babesia-odocoilei-is-pathogenic-to-humans/  Study found B. odocoilei in two of 19 participants. DNA amplicons from these two patients are almost identical matches with the type strains of B. odocoilei in GenBank. In addition, the same two human subjects had the hallmark symptoms of human babesiosis, including night sweats, chills, fevers, and profound fatigue. Based on symptoms and molecular identification, we provide substantive evidence that B. odocoilei is pathogenic to humans. Dataset reveals that B. odocoilei serologically cross-reacts with Babesia duncani.

Category:

Anaplasmosis, Babesia, Lyme, research, Ticks