This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

Vitamin D is the elephant in our room... How can it be that MS is a venous issue that it occurs in people from latitudes with less sunlight and we have lower vitamin d levels?

heres a paper associating peripheral artery disease with low vitamin d
http://www.health.am/vein/more/vitamin- ... y-disease/



PAD is not venous it is arteries, but blood vessels whether arteries or veins are all endothelial so what applies to one will usually apply to the other... with the caveat that the arteries are fast moving high pressure vessels and the veins are slow passive low pressure.

any other thoughts?

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Well the PAD with the low vitamin d they noted has fatty deposits on the vessels, so that is kind of what they are talking about there.

If you have a stenosis or bad valve or blockage of some kind then fatty deposits will go to that area and make things worse.

I was thinking about Swank and his work, he found that MS people who ate super SUPER low fat diets, like under 20 gm a day which is really hard and very low compared to normal people's diets did not progress much if at all.

Dean orninsh has shown that a very very low fat diet will reverse heart disease by removing the plaque. less than 10% of calories from fat and you get this effect.. again about 15-25 gms a day.

I believe these are not a coincidence, and it is yet another way to see a connection between "known MS stuff" and the new model Zamboni proposes....

Besides the fat/PAD/vitamin d angle any other ideas how it may relate?

I don't know that anyone needs to show this. Or rather, let me put this differently ..... IMO, CCVSI can stand alone without needing to show a tie into females v/s males, nearness to the equator, Faroe Islands, occurance in twins, or any of that. But that's just me. I think, the end result of demyelination can come to be several ways and that's why various approches seem to have various results. The problem as I see it is that we fool ourselves into thinking MS is an illness, it's called an illness, but if we take away all the glitz and theory, it's a resulting condition (demyelination) of uncertain cause(s). CCVSI could be a cause and it's not mutually exclusive v/s bacteria or even autoimmunity or viral or something else. All I'm trying to say is, first we need to give up the idea that there is only one thing that causes myelin to disappear. Likewise, the inability to tie males v/s females to a theory, etc, don't, IMO, kill that idea. Ken

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My Starting Point
Understanding MS 101: Doctor Talk and People Talk<br /><br />

That's a good point, Ken. What we call MS may be different disease mechanisms with common presentations (or not). But we don't necessarily need to find the grand unified theory of MS, in order to find an effective treatment. Mainstream medical thinking sure isn't burdened with this restriction.

I agree with Mike...great points, Ken.
Glad to have your input here. If we can find a cause for individual cases- it really doesn't matter whether or not we have an overarching connection to all of the research. The research is only to unravel the mystery of MS. Research should serve the MS patient....sadly, it's often the other way around.

That said, low vit. D has been shown to harm the endothelial lining of the blood vessels-
http://www.endocrine-abstracts.org/ea/0 ... 14p275.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18279409
AC

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Husband dx RRMS 3/07
dx dual jugular vein stenosis (CCSVI) 4/09
dual stents placed 5/09
CCSVI in MS

I agree, every person's cause of MS is probably different but shows the same damage to brain/spinal cord, this is the reason why there is not a "one fits all" drug been developed yet.

If I understand correctly, the picture is somehow like this:

A myriad of reasons -> CCVI -> demyelination

That makes sense and looks brilliant.

sou

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Shortest joke: "We may not be able to cure MS but we can manage its symptoms."

Could just as easily be:

Myriad of reasons (including CCSVI) > Demyelination

That's actually my thinking.

That said, I feel that before tackling the vitamin D topic, it might be helpful to tackle statins and link what's happened there to CCVSI. I also bet it's workth trying to dig up work that's been done with hyperbaric chambers. While I'm thinking, how might low and high blood pressure relate to CCSVI?

Ken

_________________
My Starting Point
Understanding MS 101: Doctor Talk and People Talk<br /><br />

What I've found is that once you see your individual pattern of CCSVI- it becomes easier to figure out the once baffling collection of MS symptoms and why you/your loved one has MS.

Jeff has dual jugular vein stenosis, his blood build up is brain only...ergo his entire brain is sprinkled with small lesions, equal in number on either side. His cervical lesion is directly parallel to the jugular vein closure, at his mandible. His issues began as depression, sleep disturbances, fatigue until his first major flare when the cervical lesion became enhanced, and he had numbness and tingling in his leg and arm. Seeing the magnetic resonance venography of his veins was the puzzle piece that has been missing. Knowing that his stenosis is probable congenital made sense. It took a long time of reflux and brain tissues damage to create his scenario. It's been a slower moving process, and his brain has been excellent at rewiring around damage. If not for the cervical lesion, he probably would never have been diagnosed.

The only thing I can connect to his "MS profile" is a possible genetic link (he's an auburn haired, pasty white northern European guy)

BUT he's not a woman, not vit. D deficient, very healthy (til MS) no chronic infections, no northern latitude (lifelong Californian) I would look at all the research and think...huh?
Looking thru the prism of his personal MRV, it finally makes sense.
AC

_________________
Husband dx RRMS 3/07
dx dual jugular vein stenosis (CCSVI) 4/09
dual stents placed 5/09
CCSVI in MS

There's a great paper posted on the CCSVI monster thread about how one tireless researcher followed the vascular theory, linked it to divers' sickness/hypoxia and used HBOT treatment: Dr. James in Scotland. I'll see if I can find it for you. Dr. James' theory was that fat embolisms were blocking the blood vessels, and HBOT brought much needed oxygen to the starved CNS.

When Jeff got stressed, or his blood pressure went up, his cervical lesion would flare...numbness on bottoms of his feet. When he's a zen master, he can get thru the day.

Statins have been proven helpful in that they decrease c reactive protein and inflammation factors in the blood. Again, helpful. But veins need to be functioning.
AC

_________________
Husband dx RRMS 3/07
dx dual jugular vein stenosis (CCSVI) 4/09
dual stents placed 5/09
CCSVI in MS

Ok I want to be clear because I don't think my intention was plain at all:

I am so convinced this model of MS causation is correct I can't even tell you how different this is. This is not an 'I hope this is it', this is a shift my world feel it in my gut I know CCSVI is it. I'm not saying that because there is this vitamin d stuff we must be wrong. No.

But the fact of CCSVI will have to cause a re evaluation of these hypotheses that have been put forward to date all of them starting from "autoimmunity", another hypothesis, and working backwards from there. From here forward assuming things continue with everyone showing this, they will have to start from the stenosis, a fact, and work backwards.

But this is not so fun I just wondered if anyone had any really new interesting ideas along those lines.....

it's a puzzle is all... I'm sure you've noticed I am a really curious person can't help it

You, curious???? Really? I get it, Marie....you're being the devil's advocate for vit. D!

_________________
Husband dx RRMS 3/07
dx dual jugular vein stenosis (CCSVI) 4/09
dual stents placed 5/09
CCSVI in MS

OK..seriously, Marie.
I understand what you are saying:
The paradigm shift will need to be from autoimmunity to vascular.

Vit. D affects the immune system, but it is also an important part of a healthy, functioning endothelium and vasculature.
The research in MS has focused on the autoimmune component, to the exclusion of the vascular-
HOWEVER...there's alot of research going on in the world of cardiac health-
This is why Dr. Cooke and Dr. Dake at Stanford could see the parallels.
They are both involved in the cardiac areas (endothelial research/vascular surgery), however they easily saw the cross over into MS.
I believe these cardiac researchers and doctors will be our greatest allies in the future. They have researched crp, vit. D, fats, (even cpn, ebv and lyme) etc from the vascular angle.
It's like turning the puzzle upside down, but the individual pieces will still fit together.

Is this what you're talking about, Marie?
AC

_________________
Husband dx RRMS 3/07
dx dual jugular vein stenosis (CCSVI) 4/09
dual stents placed 5/09
CCSVI in MS

Just having a look around in the nice, swank new digs for CCVI posts. Marie, I totally agree with your take on things. Sou, I also agree with your take (A myriad of reasons -> CCVI -> demyelination (or MS)).