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Interferon-gamma-producing T cells, pregnancy, and postpartum relapses of multiple sclerosis - http://www.msrc.co.uk/index.cfm?fuseact ... ageid=1936

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Thank you for posting this article. I am personally very interested. I have just had my second child and am continuing to breastfeed in order to fend off relapse. I was virtually relapse free during pregnancy.

I am obsessed with CCSVI; it just makes sense to me. Your post spurned some interest on my end so I thought I'd check it out. I am probably posting this in the wrong place, so I apologize to the family elders. I have done a search for pregnancy and breastfeeding on the site, and didn't find anything this specific. If you have another thread would you mind posting it?

The posted article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/healt ... .html?_r=1
Attempts to link the immune system to 'reduction relapse.' They note: "Our findings suggest that a decline in circulating CD4(+)IFN-gamma-producing cells leads to postpartum MS relapses."

But other things happen during pregnancy/the end of pregnancy too:

http://www.nda.ox.ac.uk/wfsa/html/u09/u09_003.htm#card
"Blood Volume increases progressively from 6-8 weeks gestation (pregnancy) and reaches a maximum at approximately 32-34 weeks with little change thereafter."

About breastfeeding, I found less, although I am continuing to search:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/healt ... .html?_r=1
"If there is such a mechanism, Dr. Goldberg suggested, it could lie in oxytocin, a hormone crucial to milk production. Oxytocin is known to relax blood vessels, she said, and may make them more flexible and more resistant to the buildup of plaque."

I'm going to keep looking, although it's tough with the two of these guys. Just some brain lint here: What if the reason why estriol isn't turning out to be a 'cure' for MS is because it's not the hormones, but the circulatory changes that are causing the improvement? WOW. On another link, I found a reference to estriol reducing relapse, but apparently, it also reduces blood pressure. I tell ya, you could go crazy now that this big puzzle piece is in place![/b]

cathyb--You are exactly right when you wrote:



And you know the scientists haven't checked out all those "other things"--like insulin?... I'm still looking for a layperson's book on physiology; anybody have a book recommendation for me?

That's an interesting statement. Ifn-gamma is known to make MS worse. An early trial during the exploratory phase of Ifn usage that studied Ifn-gamma was stopped prior to completion since too many patients got worse on it.

NHE