This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

Just an idea - for technical research discussions we might want to start some headers for topics of ongoing research, like infectious causes, mitochondrial dysfunction, endocrine dysfunction, metabolism issues, etc. Different people have different areas or research that they focus on, and it can get detailed. We are all working over different aspects of a very big elephant. So much get posted under "general discussion" and I can't remember the threads or where to go back and find something someone else posted.

Lisa

LisaBee

I think that's a great idea even though I'm not able to contribute to technical discussions. I occasionally come across research that may be of interest to someone else though and am not quite sure what to do with it. As an example, I think you mentioned that you thought MS might have something to do with "lipid metabolism". Now, I don't know if lipid metabolism has anything to do with "lipid peroxidation", but I've found several things on that, so here they are

1. Brain Response to Injury and Neurodegeneration: Endogenous Neuroprotective Signaling
2. Marked gender effect on lipid peroxidation in TBI

3. Progesterone Protects Against Lipid Peroxidation in TBI in Rats

4. Gestation Confers Temporary Resistance to Peroxidation in Rats


Who knows, maybe women with MS have fewer relapses in the last trimester of pregnancy because the higher level of progesterone is inhibiting lipid peroxidation. Like I said though, I don't even know if "lipid peroxidation" has anything to do with "lipid metabolism".

May the quest continue and the elephant get out of our way.

Sharon

Sharon,

I think everyone can contribute to technical discussions and lots of people do! I just wish we had a better way of categorizing them, and even then it gets hard to figure out the best place to put them because they overlap topics. That's why I wasn't going to presume to set up categories all by myself, but put it out there as an idea to get maybe get some ideas and some consensus.

I used "metabolism" loosely, thinking about the breakdown of fats into energy, the chemical assembly of lipids into new cellular materials, and any other biochemical actions, so lipid peroxidation would count!

The papers you cited were interesting and I'll have to think about them in relation to lipid peroxidation. I'm still trying to understand the fundamentals of the hormonal influences. One of the things I've also gotten interested in is tryptophan metabolism and the interface with hormones, including estrogen and progesterone, on the first step in metabolizing tryptophan along the kynurenine pathway via an enzyme abbreviated IDO. This enzyme is apparently induced in MS. It is also induced by interferon treatment, to my understanding, which is interesting. I think there have been some posts already about tryptophan and the kynurenine pathway. I've got some ideas about that, but now need to go eat!

More soon,
Lisa