copied from the thread on Metformin:
I have done some searching using the various search engines we have at our disposal. And indeed, I find several references about MS and Metformin, most of them concern fairly recent studies.
But all these studies seem to approach the issue from the side of suppressing the immune system or doing something with the immune system eg "the Metformin attenuated the autoimmune disease of the central nervous system in animal models of multiple sclerosis."
Now I ask myself:
Is the approach right? Is the angle right? Have they been looking into the right direction or mechanism? Or is the 60 year-old dogmatic believe in auto-immunity distorting the entire research question?
If Metformin helps the insulin to unlock the cells for glucose transport, perhaps it is the cells themselves that get more healthy, that wake up. And perhaps that is the primary mechanism. And the fact that the immune system gets more quiet (or -a view that is more wrong if you approach this from the believe of an auto-immune inflammation- is attentuated) is a just consequence of cells that are back alive and kicking putting the immune system to rest.
I wish to elaborate a bit further on the above idea that perhaps the medical world has always looked at the problem the wrong way around.
We know that substances like cortisol dampen the immune system. Cortisol also counteracts insulin. This is how it is decribed in wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortisol This seems to be the prevailing believe in medicin.
But perhaps the real mechanism works the other way around: that is that the immune system or whatever regulator is up there, when it sees these under-nourished cells, reduces the secretion of cortisol to raise the level of insulin which in turn would allow a better transport of glucose to the cells. Maybe this is just what the regulator inside us has learned over 700 million years of evolution.
This certainly strengthens the ccsvi / low-glucose hypothesis, e.g. see:
http://www.thisisms.com/ftopict-15188.html But it would also suggest that we have an immune system that is crying out for help, to nurture under-nourished cells.
And possibly, when MS further develops and the inflammation worsens, there is a point that the immune system goes over the top and can not regulate anymore. What Zamboni has shown is that there is a way back.