of iron and MS

gainsbourg · Post by **gainsbourg** » Thu Jan 01, 2009 5:47 am

DIM said:

I am not sure if I should order her IP6, I am afraid the rapid iron excretion through chelation and the problems it may cause her!

The best information about IP6 I could find on the net is here:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... i_88823874

It seems to be very safe, especially compared to pharmaceutrical chelators (or mainstream MS drugs!). Yes it will chelate calcium, zinc and copper and minerals along with iron, so maybe you should get her to take mineral supplements as far away from IP6 doses as possible. IP6 does not remove the iron from red blood cells or the calcium from bones. Excess calcium is also common in neuro illness.

IP6 is best known as a natural anti-cancer remedy. This is probably because cancer cells need massive amounts of iron to survive. Perhaps this partially explains why anti cancer drugs sometimes help with MS.

Has anyone experimented with idebenone? This is a form of Q10 which is reported to be more efficient than Q10 and helps ward off the damaging effects of iron in Parkinson's and Friedreich's Ataxia:

http://www.smart-drugs.net/JamesSouth-idebenone.htm

Iron is a "dual edged sword." It is absolutely essential for life, it plays a central role in ATP generation in the electron transport chain. Yet iron can also be a powerful initiator of free radical production and cell structural damage, especially under low oxygen conditions.

This occurs, for example, during stroke, and during the gradual onset of Parkinson's disease. Studies have shown that Idebenone can tightly couple oxidation to energy production. This prevents iron ions from wastefully and toxically, diverting oxygen to producing free radicals inside the mitochondria, instead of energy.

Studies have shown that Idebenone can almost completely eliminate this, diverting 10% of cellular oxygen away from toxic iron induced free radical generation, to beneficial ATP energy production under hypoxic conditions.

That's some claim.

gainsbourg

gainsbourg · Post by **gainsbourg** » Thu Jan 01, 2009 6:09 am

Sorry for the double post but I meant to reply to Sharon's comment on
The meta-analysis she tracked down (written by UK chemist Douglas Bell):

Iron Behaving Badly: Inappropriate Iron Chelation as a Major Contributor to the Aetiology of Vascular and Other Progessive Inflammatory and Degenerative Diseases

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0808/0808.1371.pdf

The title is very misleading..he is referring to "Inappropriate iron" not inappropriate iron chelation!

Though interesting, I found it a complicated read. It's only 32 pages long yet he quotes over 2000 studies which reflects how seriously iron chelation is being taken.

The shame is, he scarcely gives MS a mention (p15) and does not seem to be aware of the recent 2007 and 2008 discoveries about iron metabolism’s role in MS, for example the 2008 Egyptian study by Abo-Kryshna (see earlier in this thread) or the animal study that showed how iron chelation improved rats with EAE (rodent MS)

gainsbourg

cheerleader · Post by **cheerleader** » Thu Jan 01, 2009 9:20 am

Thanks for all the chelation info, Gains. Appreciated. Will be looking more into chelation, especially since reading Zamboni's papers on it.
I owe you a public apology...I kinda questioned your motives here when you first began posting. Not so nice. I enjoy reading your thoughts, and hope you forgive my hostile "welcome to thisisms"....
Happy new year,
the aging cheerleader

gainsbourg · Post by **gainsbourg** » Thu Jan 01, 2009 12:52 pm

Thanks Cheers, I never expected to gain much popularity here because few people like hearing about how stress and personality can influence whatever illness that they are suffering from. It was unfortunate that I naively started that first thread so close to joining the forum. In the end I suppose there was no choice but to remove it because it upset quite a few people.

In my first ever posts (See Dew Point topic) I began by suggesting that stress and anxiety could cause restricted blood flow to nerves and theorised that this was maybe due to muscular tension.

But this was all prior to your threads about the endothelium, BBB and venous reflux to mention but a few. I hesitate before revising how I now believe stress may damage the vasculature. At least, not on this forum - maybe I will create a PDF file if anyone is interested to download, like you once did, listing all the research that backs up this idea.

Returning to the iron topic, I suspect that faulty iron metabolism, iron accumulation, and oxidative stress are all linked to psychological stress. Wang et al (July 2008) discovered that psychological stress induces dysregulation of iron metabolism in the brains of rats:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18555617

I still believe that the primary pathogen in MS (and many other neurological illnesses) will turn out to be the mind, but I am open to other theories. Happy New Year to all!

gains

Shayk · Post by **Shayk** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 7:42 pm

gains

I agree that the paper "Iron Behaving Badly...." is a difficult read and I too wish MS was featured more prominently.

On that topic, I don't think I've seen this recent abstract posted--seems relevant to the discussions at hand.

Quantitative in vivo magnetic resonance imaging of multiple sclerosis at 7 Tesla with sensitivity to iron

The increased field in the basal ganglia and correlation with disease duration suggest pathological iron content increases in MS.

The clearly defined vessels penetrating MS lesions should increase our ability to detect focal vascular abnormalities specifically related to demyelinating processes.

What is still not clear to me is whether the research on this topic suggests that "iron" causes the problem or is the result of the problem. Curious to know people's take on that question...and gains, I'd glady read any pdf you offer up on how stress may damage the vasculature.

Take care all

Sharon

Post by **jimmylegs** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 3:55 am

serum ferritin is higher in ms because of long term inflammation. i think, if you correct the inflammatory condition and get the ferritin or transferrin receptor or whatever it is normalized, you could prevent any iron damage issues.

cheerleader · Post by **cheerleader** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 7:11 am

Sharon...
Thanks for keeping the dialogue going. iron is a problem, and there is a cycle occurring, but at this point, I am not sure which comes first: inflammation and endothelial damage resulting in iron deposition OR iron deposition creating endothelial damage and disease. In any event, excess iron is always bad. Tesla technology is going to tell us alot more about the vasculature of the brain.

Here's an interesting study on chelation in people with heart disease. I look at all this from the nitric oxide signaling of the endothelium and vasodilation (where my head's been at) - and chelation helped improve NO action. I feel that any process which helps restore the vasculature and NO function will help MSers.

Deferoxamine improved nitric oxide–mediated, endothelium-dependent vasodilation in patients with coronary artery disease. These results suggest that iron availability contributes to impaired nitric oxide action in atherosclerosis.

http://www.circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/con ... 03/23/2799
AC

gainsbourg · Post by **gainsbourg** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 1:45 pm

Yes, we mustn't forget the body needs iron for energy and nerves need iron to grow and repair myelin - but if chelation is carried out with care and expertise, only harmful, excess deposits of iron are removed.

Managed to track down a June 2000 study carried out in Kansas where the iron chelator desferrioxamine (desferral) was given to nine volunteers with chronic progressive MS - at intervals over two years. One improved, three remained stable but in the other five the disease continued to progress (but only by "0.5%")

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10875447

Maybe in the later progressive stages of MS the damage is already done and removing the cause (if excess iron is the cause) can only be part of the remedy. However, if faulty iron metabolism is the cause then i would have expected more improvement

I keep coming across neurologists who seem to agree that iron deposits can be problematic in MS:

http://fred.psu.edu/ds/retrieve/fred/investigator/jrc3

http://jnnp.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/51/2/260

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_h ... _n29374971

gainsbourg

gibbledygook · Post by **gibbledygook** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 6:34 am

I've searched pubmed for iron and stenosis and can't find anything terribly exciting which might link disordered iron to venous stenoses. However there was a certain amount about iron in atherosclerotic plaques...maybe the venous stenoses are in fact atherosclerotic type plaques...

Post by **jimmylegs** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 6:54 am

that kind of makes sense gibbs, since 'they' are starting to look at inflammatory markers for heart disease risk, and iron is messed up in chronic inflammation.

DIM · Post by **DIM** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 11:12 am

Iron again, this time with reference to milk thistle, curcumin and ginkgo:
http://www.scialert.net/pdfs/ijp/2007/375-384.pdf
I believe all herbal supplements that usualy help MSers have something to do primary with iron chelation and secondly with their antioxidant activity!

gainsbourg · Post by **gainsbourg** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 1:17 pm

The spotlight on iron accumulation has been on other neurological illness far longer than on MS.

A 16 year study (published December 2008) which looked at the eating habits of over 100,000 people, recommended a lower iron diet to avoid risk of Parkinson's Disease. Surprisingly, iron from vegetable sources is the one to avoid. Apparently it is mainly non-heme iron that accumulates in the brain!

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news ... 73180.html

Dr. Giancarlo Logroscino of the University of Bari in Italy and colleagues analyzed data on 47,406 men and 79,947 women participating in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study or the Nurses' Health Study. Between 1984 and 2000, 422 developed Parkinson's disease.

The researchers found that people who consumed the most non-heme iron -- meaning iron from plant sources rather than meat -- were at 30 percent greater risk of Parkinson's than those who consumed the least.

With regard to DIM's comment about current MS supplements. Zinc and magnesium are iron antagonists. Some believe that glutathione (e.g. from NAC) is also one.

gainsbourg

Cojack · Post by **Cojack** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 1:47 pm

gains,

start a couple of new threads...chelation & emotion/mind...i'd like to read your PDF...both strong topics of interest...

jack

Post by **jimmylegs** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 1:54 pm

DIM likes

DIM · Post by **DIM** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 11:25 pm

Actually many minerals are iron antagonists, copper, manganese, potassium, phosphorus, cobalt, zinc but NOT magnesium Gainsburg, have a look at the following graph:

On the other hand iron is in almost all green vegetables, red meat etc so it's quite difficult to avoid it completely, IMHO the problem isn't with iron absorption itself but with iron dysregulation so even if one with iron overload eats foods with high or low iron content needs chelators to eliminate it from areas where it should not be.
But we completely forgot copper another "dangerous" mineral, right?