Recent Paper: MS is a Metabolic Disorder

[marcase77]

I came across this mention of a paper published last month proposing an entirely new framework describing the cause of MS. The best article I found referring to it is at: **personal website removed by Moderator in compliance with MSWorld guidelines. go to UserCP > Edit Your Details to put in your profile** The theory proposed is that MS is essentially caused by a metabolic and that the autoimune response is a result of that.

What I found fascinating about this theory is that it appears to account for ALL of the strange aspects of MS, including links to Vitamin D defficiency, higher rates at northern lattitudes, higher rates in women, genetic predisposition, viral factors, etc.

While the paper was published in the "Quarterly Review of Biology" last month, I haven't been able to find much news coverage of it. But I wanted to post it here to find out what people think...

[0485c10]

This theory has been around for a while...they are looking at every possible cause of MS yet. in the last 7 years, i ran into a woman with a husband and 2 kids with MS.. and she was certain ms was caused by a metabolic issue. she though it had something to do with dietary fat which affects how vitamins are absorbed....
me i struggle with my weight so i didn't look too much into the thoery, my fat consumption is totally determined by my weight. not about an MS theory. i won't make an adjustment on a theory. maintaining my weight target is too important to me, to mes with my fat consumption..

some of the things that support a metabolic theory is a second disorder, IBS and other digestive disorders are more common in people with MS than the general population.

they are looking at everything and hoping if they grasp a the end of a rope, they can climb it to find more information on what cause MS...and it may be that MS is not just one disease and caused by many things for each type of MS..something that is supported by the wildly different response each individual can get from each ms drug.

[marcase77]

Sorry, I'm new to this forum, and didn't know that guideline. I just tried to post the link to the paper in "The Quarterly Review of Biology" (in the latest issue, December 2011), but that didn't work either. But that journal is easily found with a web search.

I have no affiliation with the author or the blog, and hadn't even heard of it until today. My wife was diagnosed with MS, and in the five months since the diagnosis, I've researched everything I could find on MS. Coming from an engineering background, I found this paper interesting in that it's the first I've seen to actually propose a model of MS, including a cause, which seems to account for all the pieces that seemingly don't fit.

The theory seems to be proposing that the problem starts with receptors in the system controlling the metabolism of fat in the body, which, once impaired, lead to a series of events triggering the immune system response. The paper doesnt' seem to be reporting any experimental results, just combining existing research into a new theory, offering it out there for scientific review. But you can only get the first page of the report at their website; I was hoping maybe others here have heard more about it...

[BigA]

Thanks for posting. It's one of the most thoroughly researched and documented papers I've ever read. As you say, it explain even the mysterious elements of the disease.

I asked my Neurologist why it is that even a more powerful medicine such as Gilenya can't be proven to be more effective at limiting disability than Avonex. He mentioned that there are people with MS who have also had cancer and had their immune systems destroyed and then received a new one via bone marrow transplant. In some cases, they still had MS and this means that it's not all in the immune system. The immune system is just the easiest place for pharmaceutical companies to look.

So this paper ties together mountains of research, explaining that brain lesions are similar to the plaques that build up in the arteries.

There is evidence for this and I strongly recommend an ultra low saturated fat diet. Don't think about asking your Neurologist about it - it's not his or her religion. Keep in mind that if you asked your Neurologist about VitaminD 10 years ago, they would have said that there is no proof.

Here's a link to the study. The main page is an explanation and in the upper right hand corner is an icon which links to the study itself.

This is another respected MS site, not anyone's personal site:

http://www.overcomingmultiplescleros...heart+disease/

[0485c10]

Another theory that is interesting that ms is increasing because in the 1st world at least we have become "too hygenic" so the bodies immune system is overracting to environmental things that normally wouldn't have caused the start an autoimmune response. they are doing trials on that theory at the UW of wisconsin, having people with MS eat some kind of worm to encourage the immune system to become more tolerant. supporting that theory, ms is increasing in 1st world countries where cleanliness has improved but not in 3rd world countries.

and of course there is the theory that ms is a virus that has had some recent evidence that it might be so...the people choosing to treat their MS with LDN have always believed it was a response to a virus.

and like i said response to treatment varies so widly there might be more than one disease we are grouping together under the single umbrella of MS???

http://www.msworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=117384

I'm an article in the WI MS news magazine of 'Flemming's Worm Egg Entering 2nd Phase'
In spring 2010 magazine....

The theory is MS is increasing because we have become too clean wiping out infections that our immune system would normally fight...with time on its hands and no diseases to play with the immune system starts attacking self and an autoimmune disease developes.

This study has people ingesting worm eggs, that are grown under sanitary conditions and do not cause illness to train the immune system to tolerate and not attack so strongly-same thin priobotics do in some foods like yogart.....a few paragraphs from the article.....

'The thoery driving the study is called 'THE HYGIENE HYPOTHESIS'. The hypothesis suggests that developed countries, such as the US, have higher incidence of allergies and autoimmune diseases because there is little or no exposure to parasites and other infections.

"In the developing world where they have many Helinth and other infections, they don't get MS" said Dr. Fleming "But in developed countries where kids are vaccinated, we take antibiotics all the time and the water is super clean; we have higher incidences of MS".

"Heigien sanitation is a good thing" adds Dr. Flemming, "We don't want epidemics like cholera But the environment has changed faster than our genetics" said Dr. Fleming. The immune system was accustomed to exposure top parasites. Without them, the immune system sometimes attacks the human body instead.

"Helminth and other kinds of natural infections learn how modulate the host" said Dr. Fleming. "For their own survival, they produce substances that reduce the intensity of the immune response. And similarily the host realizes these are big multi-cellular organisms. The body won't launch a massive immune attack on them or it'll harm its own tissue by causing too much inflamation" This 'immunological truce' as Dr. Fleming calls it is seen in the bodies response to parasitic infection. It pushes the immune system toward a less inflamatory response"

.Dr. Flemming believes the worms can potentially redirect the body's immune system away from the inflamatory response that happens in MS. "we're basically using the helminth as a probiotic to change the immune system to help people with MS" Dr. Fleming said are living organisms that benefit the health of the host. They can be found in food products such as yogurt, cottage cheese, saurkraut and many pickles"

& a few paragraps down....

"Previously, researchers at the Univeristy of Iowa showed that T.suis was safe to ingest and reduced symptoms in Patients with Crohn's an inflamatory bowel disease.

Dr Flemming added, "It's not like your drinking a glass of earth worms on a reality show. We give it as microscpic little ova or eggs in a sports drink. Essentially Gatorade"
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Previously I worked as an engineer too...i like things connected & inthe right order too! A to B to C ect. I understand how you think. This puzzle is going to drive you crazy after a while. good luck with it!

[jenphilly]

Well, I'll blow a big hole in the too hygienic theory... we have horses.... been known to pull my gloves off, eat a sandwich, put the gloves back on and clean stalls Hey we didn't have a bathroom at that barn where the horses were boarded

I also do not use the hand sanitizer except for when I'm prepping for my shot.... just a habit they got me in when dealing with the iv infusions when I was on the rocephin.

I've read so many interesting theories...

From mom not going out in the sun enough when she was pregnant with us...

To change in hormones due to age...

To injury / trauma to the spine or back...

To virus / bacteria infection such as Epstein Barr, staph, etc.....

To where we live, not being out in the sun everyday, year round...

To being of European descent....

To having auto-immune disease history in the family (diabetes, celiac, rheumatoid arthritis, psorias, etc)...

To what was referred to as a super immune system...

Funny thing, I can check off many of these. Prior to MS, I had not been to the doctors (except gyn yearly) in close to 4 years. Never caught colds, don't get the flu full blown... at the most I feel crappy for less then a day. Its been the norm that at the end of the year I take long weekends because I have unused sick time to burn. There is theory that people who don't get sick, eventually the body turns on itself cause there is nothing to fight off...

I am confident one day there will be an answer and I agree it will be a wide array of things combined to make the 'perfect storm'....

Want irony... all but how much time my mom spent out in the sun, I can answer yes to every other 'theory' listed above...

I kinda just accepted it is what it is... I've been lucky and outside of a staph infection at the end of my pregnancy and walking pneumonia in my early 20s, I've been otherwise healthy and had no problems, never been on meds for anything longer then the z-pack for pneumonia or other low level antibiotics for a sinus infection... Well, I was on rocephin for under 2 weeks, but that was when they thought my MS was CNS lyme, so that was just an oopsie

Anyway, that's my babble for the night...

Jen

[0485c10]

My bad. I'm sorry. Just ignore the reply have fun with the puzzle!

[0485c10]

BTW...the dots that were connected in my mind was the treatment with worms improved inflammatory digestive disordes (A) which improves digestive absorbtion of fat and vitamins(B) which connects to the theory that marcase77 wrote of(C).

A connects to B connects to C. I thought it was appropriate in this thread. thats how it all tied together in this thread in my mind.

to add to this inflammatory digestive dis orders are more common in people with MS than the general population.

but that would be a point G, there is D,E,& F still missing in between.. one of those dots might be theory you read?

What BigA wrote of cancer treatment wiping out the immune system but MS redeveloping after the immune system is essentially rebooted, would be a point U with a lot of missing dots to get to that point but still not at point Z.

Not only might MS be a combination of many disease under a single banner of MS but each instance of MS might have multiple causes???? MS is a complex disease.


With your analytical mind you might want to deter, to the 2009 Differential Diagnosis of MS procedure?

You can find a link to that on my home page under the date 12/17/2011.

when i was told i had MS based upon my MRI--the engineering part in me caused me to ask
WHAT does the MRI measure?
HOW does it measure it?
WHAT does the measurement mean?
CAN the measurement be manipulated?
IS there any benefit to manipulating the measured value?

last i asked, what is MS?

i have been out of step with my fellow ms suffers, from the get go. but it was such a normal thought process for an engineer. i couldn't understand why everyone didn't approach MS this way?

[marcase77]

0485c10, I agree with you completely on that last point. In addition to now dealing with MS with my wife, for the last few years I've been coordinating care for my elderly father, navigating the intricacies of the hospital and long term care systems. And what has struck me more than anything is, that there is a complete lack of an engineering perspective in the entire medical system.

They all kinds of expertise in medical research and care, in administration and social services management, but you just NEVER see the basic tenets of problem-identification and problem-solving that is part of engineering life. It's so frustrating. You dig into a part of the system, and you see all this expertise, but it's completely uncoordinated and unstructured. You just don't see the basic approach of:

- identify the problem
- research alternatives
- reach a consensus conclusion
- define specific action plans
- Manage the actions
- Re-evaluate and adjust as necessary

I'm also so skeptical of the drug companies, because of the massive revenue potential of these DMD's. You figure it's probably a $15B market in this country alone, so where is the profit motivation to developing a cure, versus establishing a life-long drug market? I'm convinced that what's needed for horrible diseases like MS is massive government funding, coordinated and distributed through a central, independent scientific body which would allocate the funds to the most promising areas of research. I would think a disease like MS could even potentially be cured with something like only $10-20B managed through a process like that.

And while that might sound like alot of money, think of the long term savings to the health care system overall if MS were cured.

Maybe I'm being unrealistic or naive, but I just can't understand why with so much new technology, we haven't cured a major disease since polio and smallpox.