This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

This article doesn't refer directly to MS but does add to the increasing evidence extolling that the loss of the historical parasite/host relationships could have had negative impact on the functions of the human immune system.

Of course the obvious question is what kind of problems we should expect from the loss of this millions of year old relationship and of course immune dysfunctions are the kind of things we should expect and indeed started materializing at the same times and places.

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Hello Lyon,

You make an excellent point. Educating the general public about this topic, and showing them why it is relevant to modern society, is essential to answering the question you stated. If people are interested then research funds can be generated. The topic of parasite co-evolution (especially in regards to human health) is woefully understudied.

It's unfortunate that almost all medical parasitology courses currently being taught focus on symptoms, treatment, and eradication of the parasite. A much more integrative path would include discussion of the fine-tuned physiological adaptations that symptoms represent, and what we can learn from them.

However, some pioneers are conducting very interesting research on the ecology of infectious diseases, and if you dig deep enough into the literature you will be rewarded.

Thanks for noticing!

Holly Tuten

Hi Holly!
I hadn't realized at first glance that you're the writer of the article. I'm honored and thrilled to have the chance to tell you what an interesting and valuable article that was.

It's ironic that a lot of "Hygiene Hypothesis" articles hype the "eat dirt", "let the kids eat dirt" aspect. Although the "traditional" human parasites have been compared to rats and cockroaches as being able to survive nuclear holocaust due to their historical opportunism and adaptability, in reality small lifestyle changes were all that was needed to render them extinct as part of our becoming "developed".

We can eat all the dirt we want in the US because in regard to the traditional human parasites and their eggs, this land has been sterile for some time.

Again, good work!
Bob

Interesting material Lyon!.. I am squarely in the "not autoimmune camp" so it has a less personal angle to it for me but I am very involved in local waterway issues (I live on Puget Sound) so the idea that fish intestinal parasites have something to offer was news to me. You just don't think about bugs and parasites being useful....well YOU do but I did not.
And thanks Holly for the insights!
marie

Hi Marie,
Although my wife is now diagnosed with MS I had the opportunity to come at this from an entirely different angle than most in that, without a lot of "ownership" I've been interested in the cause(s) of (what are considered) the "autoimmune" diseases since the late 1960's. The "IMMUNE" aspect is all that has ever interested me. The "AUTO" I could give or take.

Regarding the fish internal parasites, I've found it interesting that that very aspect stands to easily answer what is considered the biggest puzzle in MS research...how the occupation of the British soldiers "caused" an outbreak of MS in the Faroe Islands.

The traditional diet of the Faroese was/is highly seafood and sea birds (obviously) and their method of preservation has traditionally involved drying, which does little towards killing parasites and their eggs. By and large the soldiers were housed with the Faroe residents and the situation could have gone many ways, and probably did.

The soldiers obviously shared the Faroe diet and parasite infestation of the soldiers likely became a medical problem, which the British might have considered most effectively remedied by treating everyone involved with anti parasitics. If it is true that the loss of "evolutionary normal conditions" begat the "autoimmunes" there would be no quicker way to set the wheels in motion than to treat everyone with anti parasitics.

Additionally, the British occupation instilled a liking of (non parasitized) British food among the Faroese population. Another factor which I can't guess is how well the Faroe diet was liked by the British soldiers and how much pressure the British put on the Faroe citizens to serve British food.

If the British soldiers made it well known that they didn't like whale blubber, dried sea food and sea birds, if the Faroese couldn't supply the amount of traditional food needed for themselves and the British troops, the traditional food would have had to be supplemented with or replaced entirely by (non parasitized) food supplied by the British military AND/OR the British military might have actually identified the Faroese diet as a source of parasites and actively pressured serving the traditional Faroese diet during the time the troops were housed there.

As I've tried to convince Dr Kurtzke, the sudden loss of an always previously existing infection portrays the same image in hindsight that the introduction of a new infection would.......It requires nothing more than common sense to recognize that no virus has ever been identified in this situation and there is literally EVERY reason to think that the British occupation altered the historic Faroese parasite infections.

Sardinia, Italy. Although MS was previously unheard of, Malaria was such a problem that in 1952 WHO launched a huge project to eliminate the mosquitos which spread the parasite responsible for malaria. Malaria was effectively eliminated and MS (and other "autoimmunes") soon became and continues to be a problem.

I'm not saying that parasites are a good thing but I am saying that knowledge is a good thing and we need to accept that there very likely are negative repercussions to be considered when we eliminate factors which had been part of the human condition for millions of years.

Ironically, another interest of mine is genealogy and as part of that interest a few years ago I was going to area cemeteries and writing the information from the headstones to put on the internet. It doesn't take much of that to make clear the difference in child attrition rates between.......say the 1860's and now. I can't imagine anyone wanting to return to pre 1860 health care but I think we're going to have to start considering that the health gains we made weren't entirely "free" and try to identify the costs we might have unwittingly accepted.
Bob

Hi Bob,
I see your logic in the Faroese angle. a perfectly reasoned argument!

I appreciate your assessment of how the lack of parasites has changed or bodies and can see the point; of course it has to have caused some consequences.

I do not buy the idea though. If I understnad the larger implication and big picture it is that the parasites, who naturally engender some tolerance of their parasitic selves, allow some of that tolerance to wash over to tolerance of self antigens. Without the parasite, the immune system is on overdrive and mistakenly attacks "self".

But here is one of my heros speaking on MS Behan and Chaudhuri Pathogenesis of MS revisited foundHERE



It's a long paper there is a large amout of data about MS lesions that support the idea it as degenerative without there being any immune system involved in the damage, parasite primed or not.

Here is nother key piece from Barnett and Prineas (John Prineas is a dystel prize winning MS researcher most of what we know about MS lesions came from his pathology lab)
Pathology of the newly forming lesion in RRMS
found HERE


That's an older paper at '04, but Barnett has continued to write along the lines of "its not autoimmune...." and has a lot of papers on that thought. Prineas is semi retired at this point.

If I misunderstand then let me know but essentially the hygiene hypothesis requires the immune system to do the damage does it not? so if I accept the work of these workers and others writing along these lines, the lack of parasites has little to do with MS as they are pointing out it is degenerative not immune related?

Nonetheless, good article with interesting points. Extinct parasites! man, never thought of that!
marie

Hi Marie,
I'm not sure how to respond.

The loss of evolutionary normal conditions is a situation which is postulated as having possibly led to the increased incidence of MS among the developed populations.

What you quoted is the attempt to argue the biophysics of a disease in which "experts" like your heroes have (in 150 years of trying) yet to define the cause or the slightest specificity with which to design a conclusive test for MS.....I'm unable to take the "experts" on either side of that argument seriously.

If I were Muslim both your heroes and guys on the other side of the argument would be ducking my shoes for wasting our time and money with college words and valueless concepts.

Bob

You should of ended there.

Maybe..... When any of us enter this picture (MS investigation), what is the first stumbling block any of us come to?

I think the first stumbling block any of us have had to face is the amazement of skipping over the entire question of "what is the cause of MS?" and "what IS MS?" and following the researchers to a purported research midpoint to argue whether or not MS is or isn't "autoimmune".

I can't and won't get over the fact that we can't make any headway until we can define what started MS and what MS "IS". THEN maybe we'll have a better idea how valid the argument of whether or not MS is "autoimmune" really is.
Bob

i think we're back to the idea that ms is a category 'defined' by a list of symptom statistics.

On one hand I think you are obviously right Jimmy, but on the other hand that definition is too loose and I don't think we even have the option of accepting that. Before any real headway can be made in MS research we have to be able to define the likely cause(s) conclusively AND we need to be able to define something specific and exclusive to the MS process so that we can say with conviction that "yes, at this moment this person has MS" and "no, that person doesn't". Until then we won't know the simplest things which are essential to know about MS, such as when the disease starts and whether disease progression actually stops during remission or only slows to the point that plasticity is again able to mask the rate of damage. Of course there are tons of other things like that we need to know.
Bob

yep of course it is too loose and unacceptable, but that seems to be status quo doesn't it.
the venous insufficiency line has some interesting possibilities regarding a process potentially specific and exclusive to ms patients, time will tell.
that said, getting back to causes, at the end of the day i just don't believe there has to be a unified theory with a single cause for all patients currently labeled 'ms'. let's all be right

_________________
my approach: no meds so far - just balanced whole foods (partial 'paleo', much less outright elimination), science, supplements, & bloodwork
my regimen - www.thisisms.com/ftopict-2489.html
www.whfoods.com, www.nutritiondata.com

I am going to try to get my thoughts together and hopefully not be writing out of the other end.

Why, when children get MS, it is almost exclusively RR? Is it just plasticity?

Why with familial clusters, those who get it at an older age can be PPMS while their kids who get it earlier can be RR- Alan Osmond and his son David are an example of this.

If it is not related to the immune system in some way, how does Revimmune work?

Can MS be cohesively related to the cancer model of initiation-promotion. I recall the case of the woman with RR who died of MS after falling asleep sunbathing- not immunological, but the extreme stress of sunbathing was perhaps the promotor. Perhaps there can be many non-immunologically related promotors but the initial process is immune related?

Sandy

how do they know that ?

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Had ms for over 19 years now.

Hi Sandy,
Those are some hard and not very clear questions, but I mostly have to wonder who they were for? Jimmy was the last one to post before you did.
Bob