Is MS an autoimmune disease?

[laetoli]

I've just fiished writing this piece on whether MS is autoimmune.

It was a lot of work so I hope it'll make some difference:

http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/blog/



Festive greetings to you all,

Paul

[Moom9335]

Excellent article. You nailed it right on the head.
Frustration and disbelief is legion among sufferers of MS.
It's like watching politics, all the facts are distorted to
fit the prevailing agenda. Truth and a cure are the
victims here....and real people. We require a revolution,
and even then, the powers of financial profit and dogmatic
ego will prevail for many years to come.

[HarryZ]

I've just fiished writing this piece on whether MS is autoimmune.

It was a lot of work so I hope it'll make some difference:

http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/blog/



Festive greetings to you all,

Paul

Excellent Paul. I've made similar comments over the years but some people accuse me of being negative and having some kind of agenda against the pharmaceutical companies and MS researchers in general!

It's apparent that a lot of thought went into this article.

Harry

[munchkin]

This is well written and I fully understood what you were saying. My interest in science is just starting and this is because of the actions of the MSS and the MS neurologists.

Thank you for taking the time to write and research this. We need to make our voices heard.

[CVfactor]

Just a few notes in reference to your blog. ADEM is estimated to transition into MS in about 30% of people who are struck with this disease so it is not always monophasic.

brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/123/12/2407.long

I know this because I am one of these people.

Also not all animal mouse models of MS are monophasic either. In fact there is a mouse model of MS that is triggered by a virius (Theilers) and is relapsing (sound familiar?). And finally MS is considered a Th1 mediated T cell disease. Th1 stands for T helper cell type 1. Helper T cells are not directly cytotoxic meaning they do not directly cause cell damage but recruit other cells such as macrophages to perform the response via cytocines. So you will rareley find T cells witin MS lesions (unlike macrophages) but they are prevelant on the active edges.

[Azaeleaprawn]

Right on!
First class article which echoes many of my own thoughts that I've had since being diagnosed recently.

[gainsbourg]

I don't believe MS is an "autoimmune illness" but the immune system clearly attacks healthy tissue and plays a massive role. Consider this analogy a moment:

Compare the immune system to a massive and powerful police force or army that wishes to protect the world. This army aims it's guns on a large city where it believes many dangerous spies (who have plans to destroy the entire world) are hiding in tunnels. It spends weeks blasting the city (the myelin) and reduces it to rubble. Millions of innocent civilians die yet the spies are hiding underground in a protected area (nerve ganglia) and are completely unharmed.

The army did not wish to destroy the city or kill even one civilian. A Martian visiting earth cannot understand why part of the human race appears to be destroying itself for no reason.

Herpes hides in the base of nerves in the ganglia. Herpes is a threat to the human body but I do not believe it needs to actually attack in order to come under fire from the immune system. Mistakenly, and repeatedly the immune systen attacks the nerve myelin yet herpes is not active there. Researcheres often say "herpes cannot be responsible...show me where it is attacking!". The answer is it doesn't need to attack.

However, there's lots of indirect evidence to back up the notion that the immune syatem is ruffled by herpes -though there is no concrete evidence. Firstly, DNA from herpes anti bodies is known to increase in the spinal fluid of MS sufferers during attacks by over 500%. Such DNA is unknown in the spinal fluid of non MSrs. Secondly, stress has been observed to precede both MS attacks and herpes attacks - so there is a common denominator. No other factor has been found to consistently preceed either MS attacks - or for that matter herpes attacks. Perhaps stress is ringing the sirens for the immune system to get it's guns out, because it knows a herpes attack may be on the way.

Recent reasearch confirmed that there are stong associations between various types of herpes and MS - chicken pox virus and Epstein Barre virus.

My guess is that the immune system is simply firing its guns like the policeman in South Park - it totally misses the herpes and destroys myelin instead. We are only beginning to scratch at the surface of our understanding of herpes - the "modern" illness. Herpes is so clever at disguising and cloaking itself and...I believe... misleading the immune system.


gainsbourg

[tara97]

MS is the same disease as Lupus and sjogrens, I beleive, just more alkaline. The bull caca idea that the only thing involved is a pathogen, my immune system and the place it attacks is nonsense and it counter intuative with the balance of my body and the balance of the entire universe dare I say. If there is balance in the body then there is a single point of equallibrium and that is serum pH. My immune system is part of an acid/ base tension. It is nutralized and alkalized and put back away with my electrolytes and the hormones which move them around. I cannot prohibit the proliferation of T cells with out cortisol. I cannot make cortisol or vitamin D with out cytochrome p450s and I cannot make cytochrome p450s with out heme and I cannot make heme with out porphobilinogen deaminase the enzyme which catylizes the first step of heme in the heme synthetic pathway. Acute intermittent porphyria is the great genetic cause to lupus and MS alike but we diagnose based on patterns of damage left behind by something. multiple lesions on the brain are caused by something, they are the end result. To understand cytochrome p450s and the chemical and drug metabolism as well as cholesterol, steroid, lipid and fat soluable vitamin sythesis is to understand how a single malfunction can cause everything from schizophrenia to MS to crohns disease. It is all a lie because it benefits someone financially that we believe this lie and he who financially benefits the most will promote his lie best. no one wants us to know what our livers and our environment have to do with each other cuz then we would actually open our eyes to the devistation around us.

[jv]

Tara, what do you mean MS is more alkaline ?

[sou]

MS is as autoimmune as flat the Earth is. It once appeared to be, but there are serious doubts now. Despite the fact that no disease is autoimmune, unless proven otherwise, I find it frustrating that it is the "non-autoimmune camp" that has to prove that they are right! Autoimmunity in MS is an unproven theory that has evolved into a dogma, resulting in several hundrend thousands pages of trash research, based on autoimmunity as if it were a fact.

I don't believe MS is an "autoimmune illness" but the immune system clearly attacks healthy tissue

Are we sure that the tissue under attack is healthy? Where is this assumption based on? And why are the meninges involved in MS pathology?

sou

[tara97]

I mean that there is balance in the body acidosis and alkalosis are the two imbalances which can occur when the body is off balance. there is a tension between the two to keep the pH at 7.4. when there is an immune response the immune system works in acidosis. when something is knocked off balance it occilates over the line of normalcy trying to regain balance. the immune system has to be put away when the electrolytes nutralize and alkalize. potassium is an alkali the kidneys sense this potassium and dump it preventing alkalosis. I believe that parkinsons is alkalosis, MS is an occilation between acidosis and alkalosis but mostly akaline. Sjogrens is more equal occilation over the line and lupus is mostly acidosis with some alkalosis. that is why some people with MS have ANA titers and some people with lupus have central nervous lesions. the question is what knocked us off balance in the first place while others around us, exposed to the same things are uneffected and the answer is a genetic liver disorder. there is an inherited flaw in my xenobiotic metabolism. If you trust western medicine and the BS they shovel then please disreguard the nonsens I speak. but if you can feel the back and forth motion in you body from month to month than imbalance makes sense to you. alot more than the notion that I have a rogue entity like my immune system and it alone is causing all this havock.

with MS, according to studies I have read, we seem to have high bacteria, high folic acid (made from flora), high intesinal flora, high candida, high platlets (made from flora), low uric acid. Those with MS have a high chance of dying from a UTI or pneumonia statistically. this sounds like an impaired immune system to me not an over active one. With lupus (I have studied because I have had an ANA titer of 1:1280) they have problems with low platelets, low folic acid, high uric acid. but dont listen to me cuz I am just naturally drawn to patterns and trying to figure them out, probably because schizophrenia runs so strong in my family but what you should do is what you are already doing and thats research for yourself and ask questions. I am just a hack who researches the internet.

[jackD]

I never blamed my car for my MS!!!

jackD