This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

I started this journey looking at this after reading the insulin thread and a number of others, I stumbled acros Leptin before, but didn't look at the detail. For those like me who didn't know what it is, Leptin is the satiety hormone, tells you when you are full, so the first explanation I saw was the negative feedback loop, the quantity of leptin produced is proportional to the amount of body fat (also dietary consumption), the hypothalmus recieves the signal, says your full and you stop eating. There is a lot more to it, but that's a basic idea, the signal is relative to both stored fat and current consumption, anyway then i stumbled on an evolutionary oddity, fructose blocks the Leptin receptors in the hypothalmus so we keep eating, this may be to take advantage of seasonal fruits and allow gorging, also in northern climates for coming winter, i.e. need more fat, all fine and good, read further then the comment that adipose tissue (fat) is not just an energy store, but a major endochrine organ, ok that's good. Then find out that Leptin receptors are all through the body & blood and play a major role in imune system modulation, both for the inate as well as active immune systems, if Leptin is low then our inate system is suppressed and we become prone to infection & if Leptin is high then it instigates an inflamatory response and various issues ensue, including autoimmune conditions.
The next thing is the link between Leptins & Lectins (Gluten & other like proteins), they are not only similar in name but lectins are capable of binding the Leptin receptors and confusing the body's feedback system.
It is known that Coeliacs can not consume Grain fed animals or dairy as the Gluten (Lectin) shows up in both the meat & milk, so it is safe to assume that we also have lectins floating around in our blood stream, the quantity dependant on who we are and how much lectin we consume.
When you add the insulin issues of a high carb diet, seems to indicate that this may ba a major causal contribution of autoimmune disease.
There are plenty of hits to read up on background if you just google "Leptin, Lectin, immune" or autoimmune, the telling one for me was when I looked at the KickAS (Ankylosing spondylitis) forum, spinal & joint anti inflamatory autoimmune disease, their diet recommendations are basically the same as most of the MS directions, cut grains & carbs, reading the post linked below was just like reading a post here, it has plenty of links to the Lectin story. The section I liked the best was posted in a slightly sarcastic tone:

If this theory was somewhere in the ball park we would expect to find a high prevalence of autoimmune disease in ...
a) countries where grains and sugar make up a high percentage of calories.
b) northern (or southern) latitudes that get less sunlight
c) in places where people live highly stressed lifestyles and commonly consume gut irritants such as caffeine/alcohol/NSAID's

Anyone know of any countries like this with obesity and autoimmune epidemics?

http://www.kickas.org/ubbthreads/ubbthr ... ber=394913

Sounds about the right conditions for MS as well, I'd be interested as to how many other autoimmune diseases share the same, diet, geography & other causal factors.

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I am just an interested individual trying to crack the autoimmune nut.
Partner has Graves Disease, 5 years, showing good test results, looking forward to potential remission in the near future.
3 friends have MS, 1 just recently diagnosed, severity 7/10.