Hi Fern
I feel your concerns in this post and the other (regarding sacrifice) are well considered.
There are a few aspects I would like to address.
Your boyfriend
I think there are well founded processes identified that would allow allergies access to the brain. Obviously MS is a condition in which the immune system has access to brain tissue so the permeability is demonstrated by inference using this rationale.
Although I don’t have a link to the specific research, there is well documented occasions of people with celiac disease presenting with MRI detected lesions on the brain. CD is well identified as a physiological instance of hypersensitivity to gluten so one can infer that autoimmune diseases are a gradational spectrum at times and are not necessarily a unimodal condition of only one self tissue being assailed within one individual.
These studies demonstrate the relevance of dietary proteins in the MS (and type 1 diabetes) disease process and again, blended nature of autoimmunity.
In Children with Autoimmune Disease, Response Starts Early
Newswise - Children with neurological autoimmune diseases develop immune reactions to other targets in their bodies and in food early in their disease, according to research that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology 58th Annual Meeting in San Diego, Calif., April 1 - 8, 2006.
T cells are the body's regulators of the immune response. Increased T cell proliferation is a characteristic of autoimmune disease, in which the immune system attacks body tissues.
However, it wasn't known whether this increased proliferation occurred early, or as a result of chronic autoimmunity, said lead researcher Brenda Banwell, MD, from the Department of Pediatric Neurology at the Hospital for Sick Children in Ontario, Canada.
The researchers studied 166 children: 63 with an autoimmune demyelinating syndrome (either multiple sclerosis or an isolated event of central nervous system autoimmunity), 43 with type I diabetes (also an autoimmune disease), 31 with a non-autoimmune neurological condition, and 30 healthy controls. They examined blood samples for T cell proliferation in response to exposure to a variety of antigens (targets), including myelin protein from nerve cells, proteins in the pancreas, and proteins in milk.
As expected, more children with central nervous system autoimmunity had T cell proliferation after exposure to myelin than control children (50 percent versus 10 percent). About a quarter of these children also showed a response to proinsulin, a T-cell target in type I diabetes. Over sixty percent also responded to a protein in milk. Ninety percent of the children with type I diabetes responded to pancreatic antigens as expected, but almost as many (79 percent) responded to myelin, and 90 percent responded to milk protein.
Even at the onset of their disease, children with autoimmune diseases harbor T cells that will react against proteins within their tissues, Banwell said. The responses seen against milk proteins raise the possibility that substances in food may be associated with autoimmunity.
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The above article demonstrates that autoimmunity can begin early in life. It stands to reason that depending on the balance of causal elements and protective factors, symptoms arise either early or later in life but the disease progress begins early. This can be related to the fine article which formed the basis of this thread.
This
study by Winer et al in 2001 that found striking similarities between IDDM and MS. In essence, the two diseases are, in a test tube, virtually identical. It’s only their final expression of what self tissue is attacked which differs.
It compliments the research by
Guggenmos et al by showing mimicry between self tissue and dietary proteins. It strongly implicates dairy as a causal element in MS and very strongly implicates dairy as a causal element in type 1 diabetes.
Your diet restrictions
Its plausible that you benign progression may well convince you that your dietary sacrifices are not worthwhile. While this might be the case at this stage in your life remember that MS is progressive as the neurological damage accumulates. Every person with MS has to consider if their therapy’s sacrifice is worth the prevention of further neurological damage. From personal experience prevention would have been much preferred to suffering the ravages of this disease.
I believe your benign status allows you these luxuries of contemplation but maybe you should focus more on the protective as aspects such as ample vitamin D and omega three fatty acids. Whether to diet or not might be a moot point for you anyway.
From what little I know of your disease pattern you appear ideally suited to
be able to effectively suppress the instigator side of the MS equation with ample immunosuppression.
Best of luck and keep up your good health
Cheers
Nick