This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Knowledge & Support Community

oo

I contacted good neuro yesterday evening about the MS / diabetes link. He said that the findings from the Danish research had also been seen in a study of MS / diabetes in Sardinia.

You do have to wonder if there is someone sitting above all this research joining up the dots!


Ian

My wife has type 1 diabetes, were just two peas in a pod..

our coverage of this story:

http://www.thisisms.com/article275.html

oo

Bob,

The Ausimmune study is looking at the factors behind so-called auto-immune diseases.

http://www.thisisms.com/ftopict-2684.html

Interestingly this study is looking at EBV load in those experiencing their first de-myelinating event.

At a seminar I attended in May, we were told that the incidence of MS was increasing in Denmark (but only increasing in females). On the Canadian MS Society website there is a question about the incidence of MS. Dr Jock Murray is of the view that earlier diagnosis because of MRI etc is part of the reason but also believes it is on the increase.

Perhaps a poll could be undertaken on this website to see how many with MS also had other so-called auto-immune diseases.

Ian

I removed my post

Dave,

No offense, but you don't know that for a fact, that is purely speculation. The whole picture doesn't really boil down to candida. You can usually go to pubmed and find case studies that are self serving to any theory. As you can tell, I disagree. That is what is great about this site though.

Cheers,
Brock

oo

I feel the medical community uses the term autoimmunity or autoimmune to market immunomodulatory medications that bring billions of dollars of revenue (some costing 10,000 monthly) In other words, if you create a fancy problem that doesn't exist, you can have a fancy treatment.

-Dave

Bob,

I think it is clear that the immune system is involved in these diseases. The Bone Marrow Transplanation project being overseen by Dr Freedman in Canada shows that if you kill off the immune system and replace it the MS damage stops (to date no sign of it returning).

One of the top UK MS doctors told me that "everything is auto-immune until the you find the pathogen". Some on this site consider the pathogen to be CPn. I think that EBV is probably the pathogen in many MS cases. But I leave it to the experts to work out how. Auto-immune gives the impression that the body wakes up one morning and decides to attack a tissue (MS, Lupus, RA etc). I think it attacks because there is a reason e.g. a virus. The cases of PML which came to light on the Tysabri trial were because of a dormant virus - the JC virus - which was awakened. As a non-medic it seems plausible that MS could result from a virus such as EBV which stays in the body for life. I see that the Ausimmune study is looking at EBV loads for those who have expereinced a first demyelinating event.

Ian

oo

For the benefit of others, note that helminth (worm) therapy is being used with some success against inflammatory bowel disorders:

http://www.ovamed.de/

oo

Thanks Lyon. We have spawned a sister site for inflammatory bowel disease (Still in very early stages), so I am savvy to the comings and goings of research in that field.

One thing I remember reading is that the worms are often not seen in the stool, which means they aren't even necessarily "hatching"... it might simply be exposure to the DNA profile of the worm egg that gets the immune system revved up. Which makes the molecular mimicry they're trying to achieve very sensical.

There's another relevant and very recent study here, which I believe may hold some very golden keys to all of these related illnesses:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medical ... wsid=46860

"In a study involving 38 patients with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, the two common forms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and 43 healthy controls, Assoc Prof Fazekas and colleagues found that healthy individuals have up to twice the number of disease-fighting regulatory T cells compared with IBD patients at the onset of disease.

"It is important to have more regulatory T cells, especially when you are young, as individuals with a deficiency are more susceptible to disease and frequency of disease is higher in the young," says Assoc Prof Fazekas.

"Our results also indicate that the activity of these cells is increased in IBD patients during the later stages of disease in an attempt to fight it."

Doesn't this sound familiar to at least one of the major theories of MS? Initial infection by a pathogen/environmental toxin on a immune-compromised individual (as versus controls), followed by a disproportionate and devastating counterattack with collateral damage.

Call me naive, but I believe the medical community as a whole is SO close to putting this puzzle together...