Archive for the ‘research’ Category

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

RMSF Masquerading as Gastroenteritis

https://blog.redlaboratories.be/2022/10/rickettsia-rocky-mountain-spotted-fever

Rickettsia – Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever Masquerading as Gastroenteritis

 Thursday, October 13, 2022
By R.E.D. Laboratories

The recent article by Braun et al. explains the importance of test for Ricketissa tick-borne infection. This infection can hide numerous symptoms like fever, rash, gastrointestinal symptoms such as anorexia, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain.

The article: Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever Masquerading as Gastroenteritis: A Common but Overlooked Clinical Presentation, shows a case of a 20-year-old male presented to the emergency department with many alarming symptoms.

It is important to test for Rickettsia in order to help identifying infection rapidly as well as avoid expensive workups and invasive procedures which may delay the needed treatment.

To ensure the detection of Rickettsia infections, R.E.D. Laboratories propose the new Phage Rickettsia test which can uncover a broad range of Rickettsias: Rickettsia japonica (multiple strains); Rickettsia heilongjiangensis (multiple strains); Rickettsia parkeri (multiple strains); Rickettsia raoultii (multiple strains); Rickettsia rickettsia (multiple strains); Rickettsia slovaca (multiple strains); Rickettsia montanensis; Rickettsia peacocki; Rickettsia africae; Rickettsia conorii.

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For more:

Category:

Gut Health, research, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Testing, Ticks, Transmission

Lyme in Pregnancy: Associations With Parent & Offspring Health Outcomes – An International Cross-sectional Survey

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2022.1022766/full

Front. Med., 03 November 2022
Sec. Infectious Diseases – Surveillance, Prevention and Treatment
https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2022.1022766

Lyme borreliosis in pregnancy and associations with parent and offspring health outcomes: An international cross-sectional survey

Katherine Leavey1, Rachel K. MacKenzie1, Sue Faber2, Vett K. Lloyd3, Charlotte Mao4,5, Melanie K. B. Wills6, Isabelle Boucoiran7,8, Elizabeth C. Cates1, Abeer Omar9, Olivia Marquez1 and Elizabeth K. Darling1*
  • 1McMaster Midwifery Research Centre, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
  • 2LymeHope, Ontario, ON, Canada
  • 3Department of Biology, Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB, Canada
  • 4Dean Center for Tick Borne Illness, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Boston, MA, United States
  • 5Invisible International, Cambridge, MA, United States
  • 6G. Magnotta Lyme Disease Research Lab, Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada
  • 7Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) Sainte-Justine, Montréal, QC, Canada
  • 8Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada
  • 9Trent/Fleming School of Nursing, Trent University, Peterborough, ON, Canada

Background: Lyme disease (LD) is a complex tick-borne pathology caused by Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato bacteria. Currently, there are limited data regarding the health outcomes of people infected during pregnancy, the potential for perinatal transmission to their fetus, and the long-term effects on these children. Therefore, the primary objective of this survey study was to investigate the impact of LD in pregnancy on both the parent and their offspring.

Methods: A seven-section survey was developed and administered in REDCap. Although recruitment was primarily through LD-focused organizations, participation was open to anyone over the age of 18 who had been pregnant. Participant health/symptoms were compared across those with “Diagnosed LD,” “Suspected LD,” or “No LD” at any time in their lives. The timing of LD events in the participants’ histories (tick bite, diagnosis, treatment start, etc.) were then utilized to classify the participants’ pregnancies into one of five groups: “Probable Treated LD,” “Probable Untreated LD,” “Possible Untreated LD,” “No Evidence of LD,” and “Unclear.”

Results: A total of 691 eligible people participated in the survey, of whom 65% had Diagnosed LD, 6% had Suspected LD, and 29% had No LD ever. Both the Diagnosed LD and Suspected LD groups indicated a high symptom burden (p < 0.01). Unfortunately, direct testing of fetal/newborn tissues for Borrelia burgdorferi only occurred following 3% of pregnancies at risk of transmission; positive/equivocal results were obtained in 14% of these cases. Pregnancies with No Evidence of LD experienced the fewest complications (p < 0.01) and were most likely to result in a live birth (p = 0.01) and limited short- and long-term offspring pathologies (p < 0.01). Within the LD-affected pregnancy groups, obtaining treatment did not decrease complications for the parent themselves but did ameliorate neonatal health status, with reduced rates of rashes, hypotonia, and respiratory distress (all p < 0.01). The impact of parent LD treatment on longer-term child outcomes was less clear.

Conclusion: Overall, this pioneering survey represents significant progress toward understanding the effects of LD on pregnancy and child health. A large prospective study of pregnant people with LD, combining consistent diagnostic testing, exhaustive assessment of fetal/newborn samples, and long-term offspring follow-up, is warranted.

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**Comment**

And that long-term offspring follow-up will never happen unless independent researchers take it upon themselves.  Our government just wants this to all go away – except for acute cases for which a lucrative “vaccine,” can be created, which is always viewed as a magic-bullet and will be a cash-cow with big profit margins.

The little we know about congenital Lyme has come primarily from Dr. Jones, RIP and a nurse who personally gathered all the research done on congenital Lyme disease out of the goodness of her heart and out of necessity for her own family.  This is typically how we finally get some answers, and frankly the best way to get real answers that are helpful.

Aren’t you tired of funding research with our tax dollars that doesn’t help patients?

For more:

Category:

Lyme, Pregnancy, research