Archive for the ‘research’ Category

Nutrigenomics, Epigenetics, & Stress Tolerance 101 – Rhonda Patrick PhD

Recently I discovered that for $10 you can plug your genetic data into a very practical website http://foundmyfitness.com/ that will help you understand your genetic data as well as give you practical steps you can take to improve it. 

In this talk Rhonda Perciavalle Patrick, Ph.D. hits on vitamin D (an important hormone in brain function and dysfunction) as well as the MTHFR polymorphism (results in high homocysteine requiring supplementation with L methyfolate) which many Lyme patients have.  She also discusses limiting food intake as a method of affecting gene suppression in a positive way (calorie restriction & intermittent fasting).  She also discusses how using a sauna and exercise increases longevity. 

 Approx. 1 hour

Nutrigenomics, Epigenetics, and Stress Tolerance

Our genes influence the way we absorb and metabolize micronutrients. Nutrigenomics looks at the influence genetic variation has over micronutrient absorption/metabolism and the biological consequences of this dynamic relationship. Our diet also influences which of these genes are turned on or off! Emerging evidence in the field of epigenetics has demonstrated that not only can we change the expression of our own genes within our own lifetime; sometimes these changes are heritable and affect our children and grandchildren. This talk explores the intersection between genetics, nutrition, and environment: how your diet, micronutrients, exercise, heat stress, and sleep can change the expression of your genes and how this has profound effects on the way your body functions and ages.

For a brief explanation on Vitamin D by Rhonda:    Approx. 4:30
  • 30-80ng/ml the Sweet spot
  • Fish is a great source of D
  • Get your D levels tested regularly

Rhonda Perciavalle Patrick, Ph.D. is an assistant scientist at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute and is a science communicator for a broad lay audience via her web and video presence found at FoundMyFitness.com.  It is Rhonda’s goal to challenge the status quo and encourage the wider public to think about health and longevity using a proactive, preventative approach.

Rhonda earned her Ph.D. in biomedical science from the University of Tennessee and performed her graduate research work at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. She also has a Bachelor’s of Science degree in biochemistry/chemistry from the University of California, San Diego. She has done extensive research on aging, cancer and nutrition, and metabolism.

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For more on MTHFR and methylation:

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/03/23/altered-dna-methylation-mental-illness-lyme-msids/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/04/09/3-part-series-on-genetic-mutations/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/08/01/methylation-what-you-need-to-know/

 

Category:

diet and nutrition, Genetic Mutations, research, Supplements, Treatment

He Got Schizophrenia. He Got Cancer. And Then He Got Cured.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/opinion/sunday/schizophrenia-psychiatric-disorders-immune-system.html

He Got Schizophrenia. He Got Cancer. And Then He Got Cured.

A bone-marrow transplant treated a patient’s leukemia — and his delusions, too. Some doctors think they know why.
By Moises Velasquez-Manoff, science writer

CreditCreditJesse Jacobs

The man was 23 when the delusions came on. He became convinced that his thoughts were leaking out of his head and that other people could hear them. When he watched television, he thought the actors were signaling him, trying to communicate. He became irritable and anxious and couldn’t sleep.

Dr. Tsuyoshi Miyaoka, a psychiatrist treating him at the Shimane University School of Medicine in Japan, eventually diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia. He then prescribed a series of antipsychotic drugs. None helped. The man’s symptoms were, in medical parlance, “treatment resistant.”

A year later, the man’s condition worsened. He developed fatigue, fever and shortness of breath, and it turned out he had a cancer of the blood called acute myeloid leukemia. He’d need a bone-marrow transplant to survive. After the procedure came the miracle. The man’s delusions and paranoia almost completely disappeared. His schizophrenia seemingly vanished.

Years later, “he is completely off all medication and shows no psychiatric symptoms,” Dr. Miyaoka told me in an email. Somehow the transplant cured the man’s schizophrenia.

A bone-marrow transplant essentially reboots the immune system. Chemotherapy kills off your old white blood cells, and new ones sprout from the donor’s transplanted blood stem cells. It’s unwise to extrapolate too much from a single case study, and it’s possible it was the drugs the man took as part of the transplant procedure that helped him. But his recovery suggests that his immune system was somehow driving his psychiatric symptoms.

At first glance, the idea seems bizarre — what does the immune system have to do with the brain? — but it jibes with a growing body of literature suggesting that the immune system is involved in psychiatric disorders from depression to bipolar disorder.

The theory has a long, if somewhat overlooked, history. In the late 19th century, physicians noticed that when infections tore through psychiatric wards, the resulting fevers seemed to cause an improvement in some mentally ill and even catatonic patients.
Inspired by these observations, the Austrian physician Julius Wagner-Jauregg developed a method of deliberate infection of psychiatric patients with malaria to induce fever. Some of his patients died from the treatment, but many others recovered. He won a Nobel Prize in 1927.
One much more recent case study relates how a woman’s psychotic symptoms — she had schizoaffective disorder, which combines symptoms of schizophrenia and a mood disorder such as depression — were gone after a severe infection with high fever.
Modern doctors have also observed that people who suffer from certain autoimmune diseases, like lupus, can develop what looks like psychiatric illness. These symptoms probably result from the immune system attacking the central nervous system or from a more generalized inflammation that affects how the brain works.
Indeed, in the past 15 years or so, a new field has emerged called autoimmune neurology. Some two dozen autoimmune diseases of the brain and nervous system have been described. The best known is probably anti-NMDA-receptor encephalitis, made famous by Susannah Cahalan’s memoir “Brain on Fire.” These disorders can resemble bipolar disorder, epilepsy, even dementia — and that’s often how they’re diagnosed initially. But when promptly treated with powerful immune-suppressing therapies, what looks like dementia often reverses. Psychosis evaporates. Epilepsy stops. Patients who just a decade ago might have been institutionalized, or even died, get better and go home.
Admittedly, these diseases are exceedingly rare, but their existence suggests there could be other immune disorders of the brain and nervous system we don’t know about yet.
Dr. Robert Yolken, a professor of developmental neurovirology at Johns Hopkins, estimates that about a third of schizophrenia patients show some evidence of immune disturbance.
“The role of immune activation in serious psychiatric disorders is probably the most interesting new thing to know about these disorders,” he told me.

Studies on the role of genes in schizophrenia also suggest immune involvement, a finding that, for Dr. Yolken, helps to resolve an old puzzle. People with schizophrenia tend not to have many children. So how have the genes that increase the risk of schizophrenia, assuming they exist, persisted in populations over time? One possibility is that we retain genes that might increase the risk of schizophrenia because those genes helped humans fight off pathogens in the past.

Some psychiatric illness may be an inadvertent consequence, in part, of having an aggressive immune system.

Which brings us back to Dr. Miyaoka’s patient. There are other possible explanations for his recovery. Dr. Andrew McKeon, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., a center of autoimmune neurology, points out that he could have suffered from a condition called paraneoplastic syndrome. That’s when a cancer patient’s immune system attacks a tumor — in this case, the leukemia — but because some molecule in the central nervous system happens to resemble one on the tumor, the immune system also attacks the brain, causing psychiatric or neurological problems. This condition was important historically because it pushed researchers to consider the immune system as a cause of neurological and psychiatric symptoms. Eventually they discovered that the immune system alone, unprompted by malignancy, could cause psychiatric symptoms.

Another case study from the Netherlands highlights this still-mysterious relationship. In this study, on which Dr. Yolken is a co-author, a man with leukemia received a bone-marrow transplant from a schizophrenic brother. He beat the cancer but developed schizophrenia.

Once he had the same immune system, he developed similar psychiatric symptoms.

The bigger question is this: If so many syndromes can produce schizophrenia-like symptoms, should we examine more closely the entity we call schizophrenia?

Some psychiatrists long ago posited that many “schizophrenias” existed — different paths that led to what looked like one disorder. Perhaps one of those paths is autoinflammatory or autoimmune.

If this idea pans out, what can we do about it? Bone marrow transplant is an extreme and risky intervention, and even if the theoretical basis were completely sound — which it’s not yet — it’s unlikely to become a widespread treatment for psychiatric disorders. Dr. Yolken says that for now, doctors treating leukemia patients who also have psychiatric illnesses should monitor their psychiatric progress after transplantation, so that we can learn more.

And there may be other, softer interventions. A decade ago, Dr. Miyaoka accidentally discovered one. He treated two schizophrenia patients who were both institutionalized, and practically catatonic, with minocycline, an old antibiotic usually used for acne. Both completely normalized on the antibiotic. When Dr. Miyaoka stopped it, their psychosis returned. So he prescribed the patients a low dose on a continuing basis and discharged them.

Minocycline has since been studied by others. Larger trials suggest that it’s an effective add-on treatment for schizophrenia. Some have argued that it works because it tamps down inflammation in the brain. But it’s also possible that it affects the microbiome — the community of microbes in the human body — and thus changes how the immune system works.

Dr. Yolken and colleagues recently explored this idea with a different tool: probiotics, microbes thought to improve immune function. He focused on patients with mania, which has a relatively clear immunological signal. During manic episodes, many patients have elevated levels of cytokines, molecules secreted by immune cells. He had 33 mania patients who’d previously been hospitalized take a probiotic prophylactically. Over 24 weeks, patients who took the probiotic (along with their usual medications) were 75 percent less likely to be admitted to the hospital for manic attacks compared with patients who didn’t.

The study is preliminary, but it suggests that targeting immune function may improve mental health outcomes and that tinkering with the microbiome might be a practical, cost-effective way to do this.

Watershed moments occasionally come along in medical history when previously intractable or even deadly conditions suddenly become treatable or preventable. They are sometimes accompanied by a shift in how scientists understand the disorders in question.

We now seem to have reached such a threshold with certain rare autoimmune diseases of the brain. Not long ago, they could be a death sentence or warrant institutionalization. Now, with aggressive treatment directed at the immune system, patients can recover. Does this group encompass a larger chunk of psychiatric disorders? No one knows the answer yet, but it’s an exciting time to watch the question play out.

Moises Velasquez-Manoff, the author of “An Epidemic of Absence: A New Way of Understanding Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases” and an editor at Bay Nature magazine, is a contributing opinion writer.

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**Comment**

This article is important on so many levels for Lyme/MSIDS patients as behavior/cognitive issues as well as immune-related issues are often present in those affected.  Killing pathogens is only one arm of treatment, that while important, is only part of the picture.  Detoxifying these pathogens as well as supporting the immune system is just as important.  Dealing with imbalances is a must.

Also noteworthy is the hyperthermia potential for Lyme/MSIDS as well as the impact of minocycline that while on it, schizophrenia patients completely normalized but when stopped their psychosis returned and how he prescribed the patients a low dose on a continuing basis.

Hmmmmm, the state medical board should come after him for overprescribing antibiotics….like they do Lyme doctors.

I personally found minocycline to be one of the most effective drugs I took.

Just for the record, I hate antibiotics, but they work.  I continue to be a human Guinea Pig and try many, many things, but nothing yet compares to antibiotics.  Recently an experienced Lyme practitioner in Wisconsin told me her patients do well off treatment for a year or two but then they suffer a relapse requiring a stint of antibiotics and/or herbs.  This has certainly been our experience as well.  

More on Mino:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/06/04/minocycline-for-ms-and-much-more/

More on the Immune system and schizophrenia:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/09/20/schizophrenia-breakthrough-identifies-importance-of-immune-cells/

Other brain abnormalities with Lyme/MSIDS:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/07/03/lyme-meningoencephalitis-masquerading-as-normal-pressure-hydrocephalus/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/03/17/how-ld-affects-your-brain-abc27-podcast/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/08/25/neuropsychiatric-lyme-borreliosis-an-overview-with-a-focus-on-a-specialty-psychiatrists-clinical-practice/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/08/01/risky-business-linking-t-gondii-entrepreneurship-behaviors/

BTW: t. gondii has been found in ticks (Ixodes ricinus), and these ticks also transmit Lyme and tick-borne encephalitis virus:  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/40846277_The_occurrence_of_Toxoplasma_gondii_and_Borrelia_burgdorferi_sensu_lato_in_Ixodes_ricinus_ticks_from_Eastern_Poland_with_the_use_of_PCR, and https://ecdc.europa.eu/en/disease-vectors/facts/tick-factsheets/ixodes-ricinus

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/02/20/mysterious-disease-where-the-body-attacks-the-brain-more-common-than-initially-thought/
https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/10/01/panspandas-steroids-autoimmune-disease-lymemsids-the-need-for-medical-collaboration/  The story of Susannah Cahalan as well as the story of how a boy’s Lyme Disease Morphs into Autoimmune encephalopathy. It took 10 years and 20 doctors to find out 12-year-old Patrik had Lyme disease. Just 4 months later the doctors discovered he also has a condition where his immune system attacks his brain.

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/10/08/misdiagnosed-how-children-with-treatable-medical-issues-are-mistakenly-labeled-as-mentally-ill/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/01/05/scary-side-of-childhood-strep/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/12/01/guidelines-for-treating-pans-its-real/ “According to a Wisconsin specialist, 80% of his PANS/PANDAS patients have Lyme and other coinfections. This is important to know and tell others about, remembering that tick borne illness testing is abysmal. Getting to a specialist who understands this complexity is paramount. Another helpful tip is printing out and going through checklists with the children as discussing symptoms is quite helpful. Children aren’t experienced in this type of verbal specificity, so be patient and listen.

 

Category:

Activism, Detoxing, Hyperthermia, Inflammation, Psychological Aspects, research, Treatment

Study Shows Cases of Conventionally Recognized Nonhuman feeders Parasitizing Humans

https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/vbz.2018.2323

Human-Biting Ixodes Ticks and Pathogen Prevalence from California, Oregon, and Washington

Published Online:12 Sep 2018https://doi.org/10.1089/vbz.2018.2323

Abstract

From July 2006 through August 2017, a passive surveillance study of Ixodes ticks submitted from California, Oregon, and Washington was conducted by the TickReport program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. In total, 549 human-biting Ixodes ticks were submitted comprising both endemic and nonendemic species. We found that 430 endemic ticks were from 3 Ixodes species: Ixodes pacificus, Ixodes spinipalpis, and Ixodes angustus, whereas Ixodes scapularis (n = 111) was the most common species among the 119 nonendemic ticks. The submission peak for nymphal I. pacificus and I. spinipalpis was June, while submission peak for adult I. pacificus and nymphal I. angustus was April and September, respectively.

Endemic ticks commonly attached to the lower extremities of their victims, and individuals younger than 9 years old were frequently bitten. The infection prevalence of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, Borrelia miyamotoi, and Anaplasma phagocytophilum in I. pacificus ticks was 1.31%, 1.05%, and 0.52%, respectively, and the prevalence of B. burgdorferi s. l. and A. phagocytophilum in I. spinipalpis ticks was 14.29% and 10.71%, respectively.

Furthermore, two species within the B. burgdorferi s. l. complex were detected in West Coast ticks: B. burgdorferi sensu stricto and Borrelia lanei. I. spinipalpis had the highest Borrelia prevalence among endemic ticks, and it was caused exclusively by B. lanei. Borrelia mayonii, Babesia microti, and Ehrlichia muris-like agent were not detected in these endemic ticks. In this study, we show that many nonendemic Ixodes ticks (119/549) are most likely acquired from travel to a different geographic region.

We report cases of conventionally recognized nonhuman feeders (I. spinipalpis and I. angustus) parasitizing humans.

The highest pathogen prevalence in I. spinipalpis may indicate a larger public health threat than previously thought, and the enzootic life cycle and pathogenicity of B. lanei warrant further study.

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**Comment**

OOPS!  “We report cases of conventionally recognized nonhuman feeders (I. spinipalpis and I. angustus) parasitizing humans.”

Now just how did that happen?

As we have feared all along, the barrel full of monkeys keeps rolling out of Pandora’s box.  There are far more players in the game than is being let on.  

Stay tuned.  It’s going to get uglier and uglier.

Category:

Anaplasmosis, Babesia, Borrelia Miyamotoi (Relapsing Fever Group), Lyme, research, Ticks, Transmission

Microscopy of Spirochaete Biofilm

http://counsellingme.com/microscopy/Biofilm2018.html

Provided by Peter Kemp, private researcher at Private borreliosis research

A spirochaete biofilm observed in a thin film smear from a periferal blood drop. Fixed with methanol and experimentally stained with Lugol’s iodine (Gram stain) which accounts for some of the unusual colouring. Micrographs edited for levels, noise and sharpness. Original 6Mp photos available. Magnification 1500x with camera zoom up to 105mm

Borrelia Biofilm in Human Sample

 

Category:

Activism, Lyme, research

Toxic Metal Pollution Linked With Development of Autism Spectrum Disorder

https://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2018-09-toxic-metal-pollution-linked-autism.html

Toxic metal pollution linked with development of autism spectrum disorder

September 14, 2018 , RUDN University
Environmental metal and metalloid pollution (lead, mercury, aluminum, and arsenic) may induce autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) Credit: Vyacheslav Sheludkov

Russian researchers, together with their foreign colleagues, have demonstrated that environmental metal and metalloid pollution (lead, mercury, aluminum, and arsenic) may induce autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), and have considered possible mechanisms of exposure to these substances. The study may be useful for the prevention and therapy of ASD. The article is published in the journal Environmental Research.

Autism spectrum disorder is a group of disruptive neurodevelopmental disorders that cause problems in communication, socialization, and limited interests. They appear usually at the age of three years. Over the past 20 years, the prevalence of ASD has increased by 30 percent globally, although scientists have not yet reached a consensus on the causes and mechanisms of the disorder. Genetic mutations correspond to approximately 7 percent of cases of ASD. Such mutations can occur under the influence of in the first months of prenatal and postnatal life, when the nervous system is especially sensitive to toxic environmental pollutants. This hypothesis is confirmed by recent studies. For example, scientists from RUDN University with their colleagues from Saudi Arabia and Norway have observed increased lead and mercury levels in association with selenium deficiency in erythrocytes of children with ASD. A large Korean study including 458 mother-child pairs showed a clear link between exposure to mercury in early childhood and autistic behavior at the age of five.

But how, exactly, can toxic metals cause ASD? Researchers of the RUDN University and Yaroslavl State University, under the guidance of Prof. Anatoly Skalny, believe that the main mechanism underlying the onset of ASD is in brain . The latter is related to increased levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines—signaling peptide molecules. In addition, arsenic disrupts the metabolism of neurotransmitters and promotes epigenetic changes. Finally, aluminum can cause dysfunction of glia – non-neuronal auxiliary cells of the nervous tissue, which play an important role in the functioning of the nervous system. These assumptions are confirmed by the results of the authors’ studies, which demonstrated a tight association of the level of toxic elements in the blood serum of children with ADS and neuroinflammatory markers.

Researchers from the RUDN University considered the link between exposure to three toxic metals (lead, mercury, aluminum) and arsenic with the emergence of ASD in children. They proposed three main processes that occur under the influence of toxic metals and contribute to the development of autism: neuroiflammation, apoptosis (programmed cell death), and excitotoxicity. In addition, the scientists proposed preventive measures and approaches that reduce the risk of ASD.

“Unfortunately, the contemporary methods of metal detoxification do not allow to achieve ASD remission, especially since their effectiveness in ASD is not confirmed from the positions of evidence-based medicine,” noted the co-author of the article Alexey A. Tinkov, M.D., Ph.D., senior lecturer of the Department of Medical Elementology of the RUDN University.

In the case of acute intoxication, the use chelating agents (DMPS, DMSA, CaEDTA and BAL) is recommended, but in the case of ASD, chronic metal overload usually takes place. Moreover, chelators also have a significant number of side effects. In the case of chronic intoxication, toxic metals can be successfully eliminated from the body by functional foods. A number of phytochemicals (polyphenols, etc.) decrease lead toxicity. In turn, laboratory data demonstrate that zinc and selenium compounds significantly reduce toxicity of lead, arsenic and cadmium.

Researchers recommend the use of a comprehensive approach for the correction of metal overload in ADSs. Particularly, in addition to elimination of metals exposure, it is proposed to use antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds, as well as supplements containing heavy metal antagonists (selenium, zinc), and adhere to a diet.

More information: Geir Bjørklund et al. Toxic metal(loid)-based pollutants and their possible role in autism spectrum disorder, Environmental Research (2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2018.05.020

Provided by: RUDN University

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**Comment**

A prominent Wisconsin Lyme doctor states 80% of his Autistic patients also have a Lyme/MSIDS infection.

For more on the metal issue:

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/09/19/autism-aluminum-adjuvant-link-corroborated/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/06/15/canadian-data-more-autism-where-vaccine-coverage-is-highest/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/06/01/immunoexcitotoxicity-as-the-central-mechanism-of-etiopathology-treatment-of-autism-spectrum-disorders-a-possible-role-of-fluoride-aluminum/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/11/28/biological-mechanisms-of-vaccine-injury/

“In depositions in a trial in Tennessee, scientists from the Kennedy Krieger Institute at Johns Hopkins University make it clear that children really should be screened before their first vaccination. If screening for individual susceptibility were done, many vulnerable children would be spared from being harmed by vaccines.”  https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/09/16/how-to-end-the-autism-epidemic.aspx?

For those who believe the CDC’s rhetoric that “vaccines do not cause Autism,” please see slide #5 of James Lyons Weiler’s work showing at least 12 studies showing an association:  vials-health-summit-slides-james-lyonsweiler-magic

The Russian study stated that genetic mutations are responsible for 7% of children with Autism. The study in this link https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/10/26/clinical-trial-shows-most-kids-with-autism-are-not-born-with-it/ showed a similar finding that most children with Autism are NOT born with it:  Autologous Cord Blood Infusions Are Safe and Feasible in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Results of a Single-Center Phase I Open-Label Trial  

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/09/05/pans-autism-the-immune-system-an-interview-with-expert-neurologist-dr-richard-frye/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Category:

Autism, Inflammation, research, Supplements, Treatment