This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

You know I keep thinking there might be a dairy connection along with genetics. We seem to all have roots in dairy consumption but its not the same anymore. Homogenized, Pasteurized, and lacks the live helpful bacteria and enzymes of whole unprocessed milk and milk products our ancestors consumed. Basically we are now avoiding something that is probably important for our own nutritional type. Longing for that good old high butterfat raw milk I grew up on. Peace, Mark

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Plant a BIG Garden Live in the Moment

possible tie in? i just stumbled across a link between stenosis formation and increased metalloproteinase activity.. a while back nick had posted on my ortho regimen about vitamin d3 insufficiency being also related to higher mmp and bbb interference. will duplicate this post under 'what causes stenosis'

Abnormal Expression of Matrix Metalloproteinases and Tissue Inhibitors of Metalloproteinases in Brain Arteriovenous Malformations
http://stroke.ahajournals.org/cgi/conte ... a;34/4/925
Excessive degradation of the vascular matrix by matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) can lead to structural instability of vessels. In this study we examined the expression of MMPs and tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs) in brain arteriovenous malformations (BAVMs).
We found increased levels of MMP-9 and TIMPs in BAVMs. Abnormal balance of MMP-9 and TIMPs may contribute to vascular instability of BAVMs.

I was again thinking about the regions where there is lots of MS. It is said to be not inherited, but actually to my understanding every single MS-suspect in Finland is asked before diagnosis, whether they have relatives from certain area of Finland. There this disease is a lot more common. Don't know about genetics, but something should cause that.

possibly genetics, plus low vitamin D status, combined with some of the worst (lowest) environmental selenium levels in europe, among many other things i'm sure :S at the national level they've been working on the d3 and selenium issue

edit: check out the maps at this site:
<shortened url>
the map shows selenium levels in surface water streams not the soil itself.

whoops well that didn't work - i'll try to fix the map later :S

I'm not sure why it isn't working. I thought that it might be the comma in the url I tried to fix it with a tinyurl link but that didn't work either. It might be the case that the site is blocking external resource requests. You could probably just host the image yourself.

NHE

thanks NHE, until i do get it hosted myself, i edited the above to just point to the site link - if you click through you can see a much bigger version of the map anyway, for some reason???

map works fine but it does not point to that certain area in western finland that has most ms-patients, so i'm not convinced that selenium-level would be the answer. maybe one piece in the puzzle! certainly would be interesting to have a cross-reference on those levels and ms-patients per areas, do they have correlation and how much?

turtle_fi-- I have some general questions about the area in western Finland that you mentioned as having many cases of MS.

Has it been established that these cases of MS are in people who are related? If people in your country do not move away from family often, over time people in a given area may have common ancestors.

I believe that excess insulin secretion from the pancreas is fundamental to MS. Under this belief, it seems to me that a type of pancreatic function (or dysfunction) could be found among members sharing an ancestor. Or maybe food habits or diet could be similar in such a group?

Here is for example one article from Helsinki University hospital's neurology clinic, translated with Google translator: <shortened url>
original here in Finnish (suomeksi): http://www.hus.fi/default.asp?path=1,32 ... ,4909,4917

article says that ms develops when genetic and environmental factors both kick in, so to my understanding it clearly says genetics is important factor.

it also speculates whether we can blame the vikings, since in finland, those areas mentioned in article were the ones where vikings visited, and that ms is found in North america mostly from people originating from scandinavian parents. and north-east scotland has as bad density of patients as south ostrobothnia (eteläpohjanmaa) in finland.[/b]

Here is very new doctoral thesis article from Finland, on the genes related to MS and regional appearance by examining families in specific areas in Finland : https://oa.doria.fi/handle/10024/45394
from Helsinki university, published 2009, June.
It also has an english abstract after the Finnish one.

Link to the whole thesis: https://oa.doria.fi/bitstream/handle/10 ... sequence=1 (in english, 82 pages)

The thesis is very interesting, maybe a little too filled with medical terms for me to understand, but I think this is really good to read. to my understanding, they found some rare gene variant, that affects the MS.

turtle somehow i missed seeing your last question earlier, sorry.
i think in fact that the map shows bad environmental selenium nationwide in finland, so that if there is a genetic problem with one group, then the poor selenium status (in addition to poor d3 status, and probably a few other problems) combine to expose the genetic tendency to ms in that group. just a theory.
also what LC said about groups passing on traditional lifestyle habits to their next generation is a very valid point to consider when deciding where genetics stops and environment begins.

Hi all

And, to the long time members, I'm indeed still trying to stay "up to speed" with basic info on hormones and neuroprotection. and it lead me to some more info about Vitamin D3 that might be another dot connecting it to CCSVI.

Quoting from the open access article: Progesterone with vitamin D affords better neuroprotection against excitotoxicity in cultured cortical neurons than progesterone alone

(VDH here =s Vitamin D3 hormone.)

Now, this "protection from free heme-induced oxidative injury" just "sounds" like it might be relevant to what's happening in CCSVI but I don't really know. Marie, JL, Cheer or anyone else--does it sound relevant to CCSVI to you? "Heme" is not my bag.

Thanks for any comments or clarification anyone can offer about this. I know there are a lot of bright people here.

And, a little OT, but for anyone who might be interested in a potential connection between CCSVI and progesterone, here's a cool abstract.
Progesterone as a neuroprotective factor in traumatic and ischemic brain injury

Take care all--all the developments and reports are exciting.

Sharon

...but wow what a great paper I am so glad you picked up on it Sharon!

when you see the word heme it has to do with iron. Hemeglobin is the oxygen carrying part of the red blood cells that leaks into the tissue and is the source of the iron in the tissue when there is venous insufficiency.

What this paper is saying is that when the vitamin d hormone is present, oxidative injury secondary to the presence of iron is reduced.

More work will be done on this aspect of research as time goes on starting from the idea of CCSVI and working backwords from there as to why vitamin d plays a role, of course any person with a brain and MS is aware of the fact that vitamin d is important in MS.

This paper may explain why people geographically in places where the vitamin D is low have more MS. They simply get more aggressive oxidative damage secondary to the leaking endothelium.

OK so in plain english:

CCSVI results in a pinched area of the blood vessels in the neck so....

the blood can't get out of the brain easily and there is mildly increased pressure in those specific veins as well as reflux, so....

reflux and increased pressure causes reduced shear stress and the endothelium (skin of the blood vessel) becomes leaky so....

blood cells and things in the circulation can leak into the tissue, this includes hemeglobin and therefore iron, so....

the body reacts vigorously to iron in the tissue launching an aggressive response that actually damages the tissue in the effort to clean up this iron. The iron is "eaten" by immune cells and this breaks it down to hemosiderin. In both MS relapse and venous insufficiency with stasis ulcer(leg ulcers known to be cause by venous stenosis in the legs) people spill hemosiderin the the urine. so...

if vitamin d reduces this aggressive response specifically to heme then this may explain why people in low vitamin d areas show up with MS.

And I wonder if the often mentioned (anyone have a reference?) fact that they very often discover MS type lesions on autopsy in people who never had that diagnosis in life means that such persons had enough vitamin D to recover from their relapses?....or maybe to never accumulate enough damage to make it visible?? or possibly the endothelium never leaks if enough vitamin d is there (I bet you they knew something was wrong with them, even if it never got "bad enough" to show noticeable MS symptoms)

I'll be back in a bit with mroe papers on this vit d and heme angle if I can find some...

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I'm not offering medical advice, I am just a patient too! Talk to your doctor about what is best for you...
http://www.thisisms.com/ftopic-7318-0.html This is my regimen thread
http://www.ccsvibook.com Read my book published by McFarland Health topics

mrhodes.... I am very impressed at all the research and information you and cheer and and everyone on this board have posted. I am amazed at your intelligence and perception. I am just glad to be along for the ride. And I hope beyond hope that it won't be long before everyone here will get "The Liberation Procedure" and get their lives back again.

ozark