This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Knowledge & Support Community

I amended the concept on page 1, 1st posting to take account of our recent learnings..

@ Anymoose, Caveman, Vesta:

Thank you for your thoughts on MS and stress. I find the examples of increased stress levels in our modern live and the greater incidence of MS convincing...

Just like the amount of sunshine and the vitamin D in the blood of the mother and the adolescent during the main phases of cellular growth are an influence, I think stress is an influence too. Where an already weak metabolism will make you more vulnerable to eventually fall victim to MS… (if you are predestined for it e.g. ccsvi, bad gut..)

I have been reading up a bit on this matter in a book that I bought some time ago but for one reason or the other I put aside. The book is titled Andrenal Fatigue by James L. Wilson. Its subtitle seems appropriate here: The 21st Century Stress Syndrome. And now that we found that MS in its second phase is most likely a metabolic disorder, it would seem even more appropriate.
http://www.amazon.com/Adrenal-Fatigue-C ... al+fatigue

I summarise from pg 257 onwards:

Cortisol has many functions including protection against stress. Stress situations may lead to Adrenal fatigue (the fatty liver is a good sign of excessive cortisol production). There is also an interesting direct link with the Hypothalamus so critical for regulating things we seem to have problems with such as temperature!

There is a complex interaction of cortisol with other hormones including insulin. And it has important effects on the stabilisation of the glucose in the blood and on the glucose/fat/gluconeogenesis process. It has important immune suppressive effects and regulates lymphocytes that control T cells (as we saw, does the immune system calm down due to better feeding conditions?).

The book also gives a good elaboration of Aldesterone as a regulator. I do recognise the craving for salt. The role of sodium and its balance with potassium and the body water balance are described etc etc.

Interestingly, the book gives also ideas for diet to recover from Adrenal Gland Fatigue where it won't come as a total surprise that these ideas are not very far off from what we have seen just here above about diet in relation to MS (Walsh/ Green food).

In summary, I think that stress is an influence through the Cortisol link that weakens the metabolism but that it is not the main cause. I think that is the 'leaky' gut.

I would be interested in any further views you might have and will continue to read more on this matter.

I've never had any symptoms associated with leaky gut...unless you can have ms as a result of leaky gut with no other symptoms. I did a quick read on wiki about leaky gut though and found it was the result of tight junction failure. I wonder if the tight junction failure in ms leaky gut isn't the result of stress induced electrolyte imbalance. When there is an imbalance in favor of sodium, the cells swell weakening the tight junctions. Maybe it doesn't occur or become noticable until later in the progression of MS??

are you in the first RR phase or are you in the second progressive stage?
is there any diabetes II in your family?

through feces transplantation, you may be able to overcome diabetes...
and as Borody has shown, from MS which I regard as closely associated.
so the question then is: what happens with the changed gut micro biota?
following your reasoning:
could the changed micro biota change tight junction failure? and then, what is the role of sodium, of an electrolyte imbalance?

the results of Roy Swank would suggest that (very) long chain fatty acids are at centre of the problem..
so the question would then be: when these fats enter the bloodstream, what precisely is happening?

I'm RRMS (though the lack of relapses makes me nervous about spms...only 3 years since 1st flare so not likely). My mother has adult onset insulin dependent diabetes. I have a cousin on my dad's side with juvenile onset.

How does the bacteria fit with electrolytes?? I don't know. Maybe like this??
Stress kills some of the beneficial bacteria....
http://www.naturalnews.com/031855_stres ... teria.html

(NaturalNews) Researchers from Ohio State University (OSU) have identified an important connection between stress and health. According to their study, which was published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, stress directly affects the delicate bacterial balance in the intestines that digests food, defends against harmful bacteria, and regulates proper immune function.

Dr. Michael Bailey and his colleagues discovered that bodily stress changes the composition, diversity, and number of gut bacteria. As a result, the smaller array of bacteria ended up giving way to more harmful varieties, throwing off the entire balance and jeopardizing the integrity of the immune system.

"These bacteria affect immune function, and may help explain why stress dysregulates the immune response," said Bailey. "These changes can have profound implications for physiological function."

Imbalanced or lacking gut bacteria is responsible for a wide variety of ailments and diseases, including inflammatory bowel diseases like Chron's, infections, malnutrition, organ failure, obesity, heart disease, and cancer. And since previous research has established that roughly 80 percent of overall immune function is dependent on a healthy gut, it is important to maintain vibrant intestinal flora (http://www.naturalnews.com/healthy_bacteria.html).

"Alterations in intestinal flora are thought to play a role in many gastrointestinal disease conditions including irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease (eg., colitis and Chron's disease) and systemic conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis," writes Allison Tannis in her book, Probiotic Rescue: How You Can Use Probiotics to Fight Cholesterol, Cancer, Superbugs, Digestive Complaints and More. "Research has found probiotics play a protective and beneficial role in these disease conditions."

To learn more about the benefits of probiotics in helping to balance gut bacteria, visit:
http://www.naturalnews.com/probiotics.html

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/031855_stres ... z2Pc0oGHMt

...that are essential for producing short chain fatty acids that fuel the electrolyte exchanges in the colon (the sodium reabsorption in colon is aldosterone driven...lost the tab)??
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3030244/

There are two mechanisms for Na+ absorption in the colon: electroneutral and electrogenic. Absorption of Na+ in the ascending colon is primarily via electroneutral absorption by parallel luminal Na+/H+ and Cl−/HCO3− exchange [Figure 2]. Conversely the epithelium of the descending colon transports Na+ by electrogenic absorption via amiloride-sensitive Na+ channels under the influence of aldosterone.[6] Active K+ absorption occurs in the distal colon where K+ is taken up on the luminal side by two different H+-K+- ATPases. [9] Short chain fatty acids [SCFA] are absorbed by colonic epithelium in parallel with NaCl. The SCFA’s are produced during fermentation of dietary fibers by colonic bacteria. This absorption of SCFA’s serves as an additional energy supply for colonic epithelial cells. Their absorption occurs via non-ionic diffusion and paracellular absorption in the proximal colon. [10]

This seems to indicate that gut flora contribute to systemic electrolyte balance (SPMS?)...or imbalance if being used for evil (RRMS?).

Again, totally out of my zone on this leaky gut/long chain fatty acid thing so I'll try to tie this back to something on firmer ground for me (which could tie in with your thinking). If the initial phase of MS is driven by excessive adrenal activity, maybe that is when the bacteria is being set off kilter but it's still somewhat functional. When SPMS (adrenal fatigue??) is reached, then the gut flora is almost completely non-functional and leaky gut develops. Fecal transplant fixes things up because in SPMS its just a metabolic disease?? Does fecal transplant work for RRMS?

thank you, you got me there, this is more than I can apprehend/comprehend...
but I will keep going...

I find this article is also telling:
http://www.herbs2000.com/disorders/leak ... ndrome.htm

it is ref 26 on the wikipedia page on 'leaky gut'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaky_gut
it must have been added for some good reason ..

note also the wikipedia text "While many practitioners maintain that "leaky gut syndrome" is a bona fide pathological condition, the area of "gut problems" lies between conventional and alternative medicine, ..." So indeed, the rivers flow together here...

It is too much for one person to fully grasp. We need a computerized model of the full body and all of its interactions. Then maybe we could get somewhere! Until we have that, it's just a gamble. Maybe we will get lucky though.

Anonymoose wrote:It is too much for one person to fully grasp. We need a computerized model of the full body and all of its interactions. Then maybe we could get somewhere! Until we have that, it's just a gamble. Maybe we will get lucky though.

Not necessarily do we need to build a complete model of how everything relates to everything, that may be unattainable, it is the traditional line of thinking of the medical sector, of researchers and pharma's in their search for new molecules…

Perhaps the principal approach should be a different one, on the meta-level. The formidable complexity of the intestinal tract and the amalgamation of regular and alternative medicine (where the rivers are seen to flow together and the scope of the consequences cannot be overseen, not even half at this point) would seem to underpin the validity of a meta-level approach.

I can see an approach that consists of one or more the following steps:

1. open the neck veins (ccsvi)
2. transplant the feces (in case of progressive MS and bad gut; early MS is different)
3. enhance the Cerebral Blood Flow by medication e.g. by Bosental blocking ET-1, at least temporarily, see e.g. http://www.pnas.org/content/110/14/5654.abstract
4. follow a good pre-diabetics diet (Swank, Wahls, green food)

When following such approach, I think it is not impossible to achieve 'freedom from disease'.

Let me add a philosophical note to this.

We are currently riding on a wave, a wave of change, with entirely new dynamics. Philip Cerny wrote a beautiful book on this and on its implications. Although the book is focussed on the nation state, many of its ideas can be readily transposed to any other sector.



The unbridled diffusion of data and information raining down on us, the advanced software analytical tools such as the very powerful search machines and new models helping us begin to anticipate, forecast and predict (where we once interpolated and extrapolated, we can now determine; where we once inferred, we now know), the world-wide fora of patients and other interested citizens forging new transnational webs of power with old sectors increasingly trapped in these webs, a fast growing awareness in key positions in the medical sector that old thinking and reasoning may have held the entire sector hostage for decades and impeded progress, and not in the least the rivers of traditional and alternative medicine that are seen to flow together, all this is changing the health 'ecosystem'. The existing paradigm is challenged in the broadest possible sense.

As patients, we need to ensure that novel avenues remain open and that any new initiatives do not monopolise the debate or create inappropriate new control points, we need to cherish a heterogeniety and plurifomity of ideas and thoughts, we need to stimulate these dynamics of change, we need to ride on the current wave ...

The preamble of the above book quotes William Shakespeare:

There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

Julius Caesar Act 4, scene 3, 218–224

The last few years have seen more change than the 150 years before.
I am sure we are on the right track...

Leonard in different thread wrote:quote: "It's critical that all promising paths are pursued to find solutions for everyone affected by MS, says Timothy Coetzee, PhD, Chief Research Officer at the Society. --> exactly, for too long has old thinking and reasoning dictated the agenda..

quote: A Harvard study asking whether low testosterone levels increase the risk of developing MS for men, to determine whether sex hormones can be manipulated to stop MS in its tracks; --> so ye, it is metabolic, they are on the right track..

quote: A multi-center study exploring whether there's a link between microbes in the gut and the risk of developing MS in childhood, for clues to how this link might help to end MS forever; --> the gut relation is definitely there, but what I do not understand is why this is linked with MS in childhood. I thought it was the breaking of the gut lining that occurs from mid-age that is the problem... (unless of course that has already been cleared out and they now at the next step which is childhood onset..)

see also the last several pages of general-discussion-f1/topic15188.html

Leonard,
I'm very early in the current phase (targeting th17 and inf-g) of my self-guinea pigdom, but to me, it's starting to look like it is an auto-immune issue that is triggering the cascade of endocrine/metabollic/gut flora/nutritional irregularities associated with MS. So far, I am having the same reaction to suppressing th17/inf-g (which I suspect are triggering CRH release) with fenofibrate that I did to suppressing ACTH with clonidine. Actually, I feel a bit better on the fenofibrate (stable energy and creative drive back).

I've blown off the auto-immune theory since MS first knocked on my door...because none of the DMDs seemed to be effective in the long term. But now I think the flaw is in the drugs prescribed for MS, not the theory behind them. Have you considered that an auto-immune issue could be triggering all of the contributors you suspect?? I'd love to be talked out of believing MS is an auto-immune issue. A weakness in my new belief is that fenofibrate is a PPAR-alpha agonist. You've mentioned PPARs before in relation to long chain fatty acids, I think. Could I blame improvement on that rather than immunomodulation?? What do you think??

Anonymoose wrote:I've blown off the auto-immune theory since MS first knocked on my door...because none of the DMDs seemed to be effective in the long term. But now I think the flaw is in the drugs prescribed for MS, not the theory behind them. Have you considered that an auto-immune issue could be triggering all of the contributors you suspect?? I'd love to be talked out of believing MS is an auto-immune issue. A weakness in my new belief is that fenofibrate is a PPAR-alpha agonist. You've mentioned PPARs before in relation to long chain fatty acids, I think. Could I blame improvement on that rather than immunomodulation?? What do you think??

Sorry to break it to your anonymoose, but you can't learn anything definitively about multiple sclerosis just by experimenting on yourself.

check out this article on the natural history of MS from ontario, canada in the 1970s/1980s: http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/112/1/133.short

None of the these patients were on pharmaceuticals, and I doubt many of them were on special diets.

Look at the tremendous variation in how people do over time. People naturally have random quick deterioration or long periods of remission or improvement which we cannot predict.

The effect of random variation and placebo effect is so great that we have to study large groups of people in randomized blinded trials to determine what works.

centenarian100 wrote:

Anonymoose wrote:I've blown off the auto-immune theory since MS first knocked on my door...because none of the DMDs seemed to be effective in the long term. But now I think the flaw is in the drugs prescribed for MS, not the theory behind them. Have you considered that an auto-immune issue could be triggering all of the contributors you suspect?? I'd love to be talked out of believing MS is an auto-immune issue. A weakness in my new belief is that fenofibrate is a PPAR-alpha agonist. You've mentioned PPARs before in relation to long chain fatty acids, I think. Could I blame improvement on that rather than immunomodulation?? What do you think??

Sorry to break it to your anonymoose, but you can't learn anything definitively about multiple sclerosis just by experimenting on yourself.

check out this article on the natural history of MS from ontario, canada in the 1970s/1980s: http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/112/1/133.short

None of the these patients were on pharmaceuticals, and I doubt many of them were on special diets.

Look at the tremendous variation in how people do over time. People naturally have random quick deterioration or long periods of remission or improvement which we cannot predict.

The effect of random variation and placebo effect is so great that we have to study large groups of people in randomized blinded trials to determine what works.

Cent,

Agreed. Nothing definitive can come about from one person's experience. Does that fact inherently negate the possible relevance/value of one person's experience??

Btw, the symptoms by which I measure improvement have been steady since my first exacerbation. They haven't changed unless I have been on clonidine or fenofibrate. I was only on the clonidine for a bit more than 2 months before I had to start taking it. I've been on fenofibrate for less than a week. There hasn't been time for natural changes in my progression. The changes are either related to the meds or placebo effect. When I stopped the clonidine, the symptoms it improved slowly began to return with no other changes in diet, lifestyle, stress, illness. I did start taking a multi-vitamin.

I'm enjoying learning from your posts. You are quite knowledgeable about MS. Might I ask why/how this came to be??

Anonymoose wrote:Cent,

Agreed. Nothing definitive can come about from one person's experience. Does that fact inherently negate the possible relevance/value of one person's experience??

Btw, the symptoms by which I measure improvement have been steady since my first exacerbation. They haven't changed unless I have been on clonidine or fenofibrate. I was only on the clonidine for a bit more than 2 months before I had to start taking it. I've been on fenofibrate for less than a week. There hasn't been time for natural changes in my progression. The changes are either related to the meds or placebo effect. When I stopped the clonidine, the symptoms it improved slowly began to return with no other changes in diet, lifestyle, stress, illness. I did start taking a multi-vitamin.

If it works for you, go with it.

I'm enjoying learning from your posts. You are quite knowledgeable about MS. Might I ask why/how this came to be??

I have an interest in it as my husband is permanently disabled due to MS.

centenarian100 wrote:

Anonymoose wrote:Cent,

Agreed. Nothing definitive can come about from one person's experience. Does that fact inherently negate the possible relevance/value of one person's experience??

Btw, the symptoms by which I measure improvement have been steady since my first exacerbation. They haven't changed unless I have been on clonidine or fenofibrate. I was only on the clonidine for a bit more than 2 months before I had to start taking it. I've been on fenofibrate for less than a week. There hasn't been time for natural changes in my progression. The changes are either related to the meds or placebo effect. When I stopped the clonidine, the symptoms it improved slowly began to return with no other changes in diet, lifestyle, stress, illness. I did start taking a multi-vitamin.

If it works for you, go with it.

I'm enjoying learning from your posts. You are quite knowledgeable about MS. Might I ask why/how this came to be??

I have an interest in it as my husband is permanently disabled due to MS.

Sorry to hear that but I am glad your husband has a wonderful advocate like you. Kudos to you for learning as much as you can about the plight you share.

Leonard
Just posted some leptin info you may be interested in, don't know if you've seen it yet.
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/general-d ... 22104.html