Red Hair

[JimP]

There are quite a few people of all races with MS.

It is true that white people in general are the majority.

But then again, women overtake men in numbers too.

I often wonder about the vitamin D factor. But I also wonder about the Candida factor. Perhaps there are more women than men with MS because Candida is more common in women (i.e. yeast infections, etc).

I truely believe (and I'm male obviously) that I have a yeast over growth in my intestines and guts and I think it's gone to a cellular level, which aint good. Why else would I stink after eating bread and sugar?

My mom, God bless 'er, got a little over zealous with putting me on antibiotics as a kid. In fact, I believe one of my old pediatricians warned her about putting me on too many antibiotics.

All the good germs died and left a yeasty mess in my guts.

And as the MS progressed, so did the odor.

For some time I was thinking it was metabolic related, but I've found someone else with the same problem and she was diagnosed with yeast overgrowth within her body.

It all makes sense now. If only my mom let me ride out the acne and colds, I may have been completely healthier person today

[Nenu]

Link me to the pictures thread Please and thanks!

[Lyon]

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[cheerleader]

OK, OK, Bob...
I'm a believer, I recant, I beg forgiveness....

I looked into the Japan info regarding MS incidence-
I may only say this once, so enjoy it. You're right, Bob.
':('

Abstract:
Twenty-two years after the first survey, a follow-up study was performed on the prevalence of multiple sclerosis (MS) in Asahikawa, a city in northern Japan. The crude prevalence of MS rose from 2.5/100,000 (in 1975) to 10.2/100,000 (in 2002). Although prevalence of MS increase four-fold in Japan over the last two decades, it remains uncertain whether this apparent increase is real or reflects better ascertainment.

Publisher: Elsevier Science Publishers B.V, Biomedical Division

But here's a study showing lower MS incidence in Japanese-Americans. It is offered as evidence of possible lower susceptibility to MS in Japanese.

http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/conte ... /105/4/303

C'mon, Bob, can't you just play nice and let us have our red hair theory????
-AC

[Lyon]

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[DIM]

Just for thought Japanese diet includes many fishes, many spices (as turmeric that inhibits experimental MS), no milk, no gluten foods (they eat rice), no processed meat etc, do they have low incidence due to their habits?

[Lyon]

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[Terry]

Okay Bob, I hear you, but I'm not giving up yet.

For some reason that brings to mind the old MS conundrum which was based on figures from 40 or 50 years ago in which Japanese Americans who migrated to Hawaii from Southern California found lower incidence of MS, yet Japanese migrating to Hawaii from Japan found higher MS incidence.

Why can't this mean that the Japanese-Americans at some time in the past were mated with someone with the MC1R gene and passed that gene along. For the next generations, going to Hawaii and being exposed to more sun would help. For the Japanese in Japan without that gene UNTIL they went to Hawaii and mated wiith an MC1R, going to Hawaii would have a negative effect for future generations. Now they are passing the MC1r gene.

And then there is this

Red hair is caused by a recessive gene that can skip generations before reappearing, and it is also relatively rare.

And this is about skin cancer, but you'll see the importance...

It's true that people with red hair, fair skin, and freckles have the highest risk.

But people who carry one gene for this high-risk trio also face an increased risk of skin cancer, even if their skin color is olive.

Those with two "red-hair" variants of the gene that codes for the melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R) will have red hair, fair skin, and freckles--and have the highest risk for sun-induced skin cancer, Richard A. Sturm, Ph.D., said at the annual meeting of the American Society for Human Genetics. When only one of these variants is inherited, the person's skin color can be any one of a variety of hues, even shades that are usually considered relatively resistant to skin cancer. Even as a heterozygous allele, the "red-hair" variant of the MC1R gene boosts skin cancer susceptibility

I read somewhere in the last couple days about MC1R genes and the difference in the way people with that gene respond to bacteria, viruses, and yeast. I'll look for that again.

And this seems logical to me.

Dr Compston now thinks that the American blacks have interbred enough that they too have the genetic predisposition.

And it seems to me that there must be a reason that

Chasing the Viking gene is something that retired British research neurologists do in their retirement.

It keeps them out of their wife's hair.

??

Or, they spend their last years trying to figure it out because they were convinced that they were onto something.

Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind.
Marston Bates

Terry

[Terry]

Bob and all,

I just realized that the gene we were discussing is not the viking gene. I think the viking gene is brc1 or brc2. We were taking about mc1r.

Also, I cannot find the article on virus, bacteria, yeast, so I take that statement back for now. Maybe I misread?

I did find one about mc1r and colitis, which implicates the mc1r .

http://gut.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/55/10/1415

Conclusions: This is the first study to show a functional role of MC1R in intestinal inflammation. The data suggest a pivotal role of non-haematopoietic cell expressed MC1R in the host’s response to pathogenic stimuli.

[cheerleader]

pssst....Terry,
We're not going to change Bob's mind
He would agree with the genetic implication-
BUT he believes that the people with this gene began industrialized civilization
(which in turn created higher rates of MS)
thus his "which came first- chicken or the egg" analogy.
You n' me are chickens (squawk!)
and that makes Bob an egg head.


AC

[Terry]

chicken to chicken.....

I'm quite sure we won't change his mind. But I'll tell ya' I know more about worms than I ever wanted to know! I didn't even know the word "helmynth" existed till I "met" Bob. At least our stories are of genes, and not some guy flying to the other side of the world to walk in CRAP!


I'm just playing, Bob. You are good to bounce ideas off of, even if you do rant about your friend the hookworm from time to time.

Really, I haven't dismissed Bob's theory, or any others, actually, but I'm kind of into this one. So far it makes sense, but you can tell not a lot of research has been done with its relation to MS. Mostly skin cancer stuff.

I walked an MS walk this morning- 5 miles- and since I'm an old, out of shape MSer, I'm now too lazy to do anything but sit. So, unless a movie draws my attention, you all may have to hear from me a few more times today.

......and you thought MS was bad........

Terry

[Lyon]

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[TwistedHelix]

Bob,
I can't help feeling you're being a bit disingenuous here. I don't think anybody is suggesting a 100% causal link between one gene, (most probably a group of genes), and MS and nobody is saying that all people with MS have red hair, or that all people with red hair have MS.… in the same way as not all people without helminths get MS
The possibility remains that a genetic trait may cause people to be vulnerable to any of the aspects of modern life that we've discussed many times – stress, diet, loss of parasites, etc. etc. – and is particularly visible in people of northern European descent. The term, " Viking gene" is convenient shorthand for a particular genetic sequence that appears to have become concentrated in regions of Finland some time before the 12th century, but that does not preclude the notion that the trait existed in populations of early hominids coming out of Africa, and remained hidden from sight in other populations until they "westernised" their lifestyles.

Incidentally, for what it's worth, my dad was Italian and died of skin cancer.

[Lyon]

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[Terry]

In 1995 a landmark study demonstrated that over 80% of humans with red hair or fair skin have a dysfunctional variant of the Mc1r gene.[12]

This discovery provoked interest in determining why there is an unusual prevalence of red hair and pale skin in some northern European populations, specifically Britain and Ireland. The Out-of-Africa model proposes that modern humans originated in Africa and migrated north to populate Europe and Asia. It is most likely that these migrants had an active Mc1r variant and, accordingly, darker hair and skin (as displayed by indigenous Africans today). Concordant with the migration north, the selective pressure maintaining dark skin decreased as radiation from the sun became less intense. Thus variations in Mc1r began to appear in the human population, resulting in the paler skin and red hair of some Europeans.


Human skin color map, demonstrating the prevalence of pale skin in northern latitudes. Data for native populations collected by R. Biasutti prior to 1940Studies find no evidence for positive selection driving these changes. Instead, the absence of high levels of solar radiation in northern Europe relaxed the selective pressure on active Mc1r, allowing the gene to mutate into dysfunctional variants without reproductive penalty, then propagate by genetic drift.[13]

The reason for the unusually high numbers of dysfunctional Mc1r variants in certain human populations is not yet known, though sexual selection for red hair has been proposed.[14]