Depression and Suicide in Lyme disease

I just went into Brian Fallon's Columbia University website and discovered this blog with archived broadcasts. 

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/columbiapsychiatrynyspi

BBC News: Living organ regeneration 'first'

Living organ regeneration 'first'

An elderly organ in a living animal has been regenerated into a youthful state by DNA manipulation for the first time, UK researchers say.

Read more:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26920528

Melatonin can be neuroprotective against Parkinson's disease?

First, here is a link about neuroprotective properties of certain spices. Scroll down to 

Parkinson

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3183139/?tool=pubmed

For brain to optimally produce melatonin at night you need a very dark room (can 

not see your hand in front of face) It appears a sleep mask over eyes does help. 

Some earlier research had seemed to show light anywhere on body was a problem 

but this is in doubt now. Article below from life extension.

Melatonin may protect against Parkinson's disease

The theory that Parkinson's disease has an environmental cause has recently 

gained credence. A study published in the December 2000 issue of the journal 

Nature Neuroscience demonstrated that the pesticide Rotenone caused Parkinson's 

symptoms  when administered to rats. The article indicated that Rotenone may 

cause  the mitochondria, which are the power plants of the cells, to produce  

free radicals, thereby causing the damage that leads to Parkinson's  disease.

In a study published in the  January 1, 2001 issue of the Federation of American 

Societies for  Experimental Biology or FASEB journal, researchers injected the  

neurotoxin 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) into the right substantia nigra of  the 

brains of rats. This neurotoxin produces a loss of dopaminergic  cells, thereby 

creating an experimental model of Parkinson's in the  right hemisphere of the 

brain of the rats who received the injection, as  Parkinson's disease is 

characterized by a loss of these cells. The rats  exhibited a postural assymetry 

which causes rotation away from the the  undamaged side of the body, seen as 

circling behavior. Rats given  melatonin prior to administration of 6-OHDA did 

not demonstrate this  behavior. Analysis of the affected brain tissue in rats 

receiving 6-OHDA  who were not protected with melatonin showed a loss of complex 

1  activity of mitochondrial phosphorylation enzymes, a reduction of which  has 

been observed in the substantia nigra of Parkinson's disease  patients. However, 

the melatonin-treated rats were protected against  this loss. The researchers 

conclude that a deficit in mitochondrial  complex 1 could cause free 

radical-induced cell death in Parkinson's  disease, both directly and by 

decreased ATP synthesis and energy  failure, and that melatonin may be useful in  the

treatment of  neurodegenerative disorders in which free radicals play a role.

A little update on insect-borne diseases and travel

I just came across this today and thought to pass it along. Of course, Lyme disease is not mentioned nor mention of ticks, spiders, and other biting insects as vectors. This article is primarily about mosquitoes. Still, there are some sobering numbers and cautions here. Anybody with a chronic infection such as Lyme disease or co-infections of Lyme, should be wary of traveling to an area where the likelihood of picking up yet another infection is high. Many people can apparently carry Lyme disease bacteria within their bodies for a long time without symptoms. But, the classic Lyme onset scenario is when some even relatively-innocuous environmental stressor or additional infection occurs, and then the whole house of cards comes crashing down. The immune system can only handle so many challenges at one time.

http://www.consultant360.com/exclusives/vector-borne-diseases-pose-threat-travelers

Vector-Borne Diseases Pose A Threat to Traveler

Wed, 04/09/14 - 09:20

Vector-borne disease—those carried by insects and small animals (eg, malaria, dengue, yellow fever, and West Nile virus)—affect more individuals each year as globalization, travel, and climate change continue to shift the natural boundaries of these vectors away from their traditional regions. Today, roughly 50% of people living in the Western Hemisphere are at risk.

The chikungunya virus first debuted in the Americans in 2 cases on the island of Saint Martin in December 2013. By the end of March 2014, more than 3000 cases have been confirmed in 10 Caribbean countries.(3)

Researchers are now warning that the virus may soon be classified as an epidemic, particularly as travelers from across the world arrive to Brazil next month for the FIFA World Cup.

Brazil reports the highest incidence of dengue; the dengue and chikungunya viruses are transmitted by the same mosquitoes.(1)

Chikungunya can cause fever and severe joint pain, often in the hands and feet, which can sometimes lead to permanent disability. Mortality can reach 1 in 1000. Symptoms commonly begin within 3 to 7 days.

There is no vaccine or medication to prevent the chikungunya disease. If infected, avoiding mosquito bites will help prevent the spread of the virus.

"We as a world are in some ways more vulnerable than ever," said Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, "and that means that we as a world need to collaborate more effectively than ever so we can build the capacity to find new diseases, outbreaks and threats wherever they emerge promptly, and respond effectively."

Countries in the Americas have had success in the past fighting vector-borne disease. Malaria has gone down 60% and malaria deaths declined by 72% between 2000 and 2012.3  A majority of the progress can be credited to publicly-funded programs controlling mosquitoes and other insects, as well as vaccination campaigns against these illnesses.

In honor of World Health Day 2014, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) (3) urge governments to continue to publicly fund vector-control programs and invest in water sanitation and waste collection. Health authorities say countries should improve monitoring of these diseases as well as drug resistance.

"The successes achieved so far are today being threatened by the expansion of mosquitoes and other vectors into new habitats and by the emergence of insecticide and drug resistance," said Carissa F. Etienne, director of PAHO/WHO.

When traveling in a mosquito-heavy area, individuals should use air conditioning and/or window and door screens, wear repellent on exposed skin, wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants, wear permethrin-treated clothing, empty standing water from outdoor containers, and support local vector control programs. People at increased risk for severe diseases should not travel to areas with ongoing outbreaks.

by Michael Potts

–

   1. American Society for Microbiology. Chikungunya poised to invade the Americas [press release]. 2014 Apr 7. Available at:  https://www.asm.org/index.php/journal-press-releases/92908-chikungunya-poised-to-invade-the-americas. Accessed April 9, 2014.

   2. CDC. Chikungunya virus. Available at:http://www.cdc.gov/chikungunya/pdfs/CHIKV_FACT%20SHEET_CDC_General%20Public_cleared.pdf. Accessed April 9, 2014.

   3. World Health Organization/Pan American Health Organization. Step up the fight against vector-borne diseases in the Americas [press release]. 2014 Apr 4. Available at:http://www.paho.org/hq/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9436.... Accessed April 9, 2014.d

David Brooks on What Suffering Does

This is from David Brooks, columnist in the New York Times. I've seen him on the tube many times, doing his weekly political wrap-up on the PBS Newshour show. I didn't know anything about this side of him. For all of us suffering with chronic whatever, I recommend reading it.

What Suffering Does

(C)New York Times 

www.nytimes.com

April 7, 2014

By David Brooks,

Over the past few weeks, I've found myself in a bunch of conversations in which the unspoken assumption was that the main goal of life is to maximize happiness. That's normal. When people plan for the future, they often talk about all the good times and good experiences they hope to have. We live in a culture awash in talk about happiness. In one three-month period last year, more than 1,000 books were released on Amazon on that subject.

But notice this phenomenon. When people remember the past, they don't only talk about happiness. It is often the ordeals that seem most significant. People shoot for happiness but feel formed through suffering.

Now, of course, it should be said that there is nothing intrinsically ennobling about suffering. Just as failure is sometimes just failure (and not your path to becoming the next Steve Jobs) suffering is sometimes just destructive, to be exited as quickly as possible.

But some people are clearly ennobled by it. Think of the way Franklin Roosevelt came back deeper and more empathetic after being struck with polio. Often, physical or social suffering can give people an outsider's perspective, an attuned awareness of what other outsiders are enduring.

But the big thing that suffering does is it takes you outside of precisely that logic that the happiness mentality encourages. Happiness wants you to think about maximizing your benefits. Difficulty and suffering sends you on a different course.

First, suffering drags you deeper into yourself. The theologian Paul Tillich wrote that people who endure suffering are taken beneath the routines of life and find they are not who they believed themselves to be. The agony involved in, say, composing a great piece of music or the grief of having lost a loved one smashes through what they thought was the bottom floor of their personality, revealing an area below, and then it smashes through that floor revealing another area.

Then, suffering gives people a more accurate sense of their own limitations, what they can control and cannot control. When people are thrust down into these deeper zones, they are forced to confront the fact they can't determine what goes on there. Try as they might, they just can't tell themselves to stop feeling pain, or to stop missing the one who has died or gone. And even when tranquillity begins to come back, or in those moments when grief eases, it is not clear where the relief comes from. The healing process, too, feels as though it's part of some natural or divine process beyond individual control.

People in this circumstance often have the sense that they are swept up in some larger providence. Abraham Lincoln suffered through the pain of conducting a civil war, and he came out of that with the Second Inaugural. He emerged with this sense that there were deep currents of agony and redemption sweeping not just through him but through the nation as a whole, and that he was just an instrument for transcendent tasks.

It's at this point that people in the midst of difficulty begin to feel a call. They are not masters of the situation, but neither are they helpless. They can't determine the course of their pain, but they can participate in responding to it. They often feel an overwhelming moral responsibility to respond well to it. People who seek this proper rejoinder to ordeal sense that they are at a deeper level than the level of happiness and individual utility. They don't say, "Well, I'm feeling a lot of pain over the loss of my child. I should try to balance my hedonic account by going to a lot of parties and whooping it up."

The right response to this sort of pain is not pleasure. It's holiness. I don't even mean that in a purely religious sense. It means seeing life as a moral drama, placing the hard experiences in a moral context and trying to redeem something bad by turning it into something sacred. Parents who've lost a child start foundations. Lincoln sacrificed himself for the Union. Prisoners in the concentration camp with psychologist Viktor Frankl rededicated themselves to living up to the hopes and expectations of their loved ones, even though those loved ones might themselves already be dead.

Recovering from suffering is not like recovering from a disease. Many people don't come out healed; they come out different. They crash through the logic of individual utility and behave paradoxically. Instead of recoiling from the sorts of loving commitments that almost always involve suffering,they throw themselves more deeply into them. Even while experiencing the worst and most lacerating consequences, some people double down on vulnerability. They hurl themselves deeper and gratefully into their art, loved ones and commitments.

The suffering involved in their tasks becomes a fearful gift and very different than that equal and other gift, happiness, conventionally defined.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on April 8, 2014, on page A25 of the New York edition with the headline: What Suffering Does.

Detox pathways working?

Both breast cancer and the expression of Lyme disease can be linked to mutations affecting methylation and detox pathways. These mutations, or "SNIPS" play an important role in one's ability or inability to achieve and maintain good health, free of cancer and chronic disease.

This is the perfect reason for getting your genome done by the likes of 23andMe, then submitting your raw data analysis to one of the very affordable SNIPs analysis sites online, such as MTHFR.net. The analysis, after you have your genome data, is about $20. No big expense. 

Unfortunateley, 23andMe has been hampered in its public genome mapping services, due to a crackdown by the FDA (unwarranted, many claim). They web page currently says:

"After discussion with officials from the Food and Drug Administration today, 23andMe will comply with the FDA's directive and stop offering new consumers access to health-related genetic tests while the company moves forward with the agency's regulatory review

processes."

Luckily, I already had mine done before this happened, but if you didn't, I'd just recommend you stay tuned and check their site once in a while to see what's going on. I'm sure they or some other lab doing this work will appear. If you DO already have a genome mapping done by 23andMe, then I recommend you go to MTHFR.net and read up about getting your SNIPS done. Then relay the results to your doctor(s) who may then suggest lifestyle, diet, exercise, and/or Rx changes to address your specific genetic needs. 

Bob

BBC News: Ketamine 'exciting' depression therapy

I saw this story on the BBC News and thought I would report it here, since depression is such a common symptom of Lyme disease and Parkinson's.

Ketamine 'exciting' depression therapy

The illegal party drug, ketamine, is an "exciting" and "dramatic" new treatment for depression, say doctors who have conducted the first trial in the UK.

Read more:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26647738

Germany's guidelines for Lyme treatment

I have been hearing for a while now about how Germany is more progressive than the US when it comes to reporting, acknowledging and treating Lyme disease. I stumbled across this document today while searching for an official estimate of the number of new cases of Lyme disease in that country. I recently heard some expert saying that Germany estimates a million new cases per year in a country that's a fraction of the size of the United States.

It's refreshing to read this document because clearly Germany recognizes late-stage Lyme disease exists, and further, that the effectiveness of late-stage treatment is very difficult to monitor by serology tests. They state that effectiveness of treatment must be determined solely through clinical evidence -- in other words how the patient looks, functions, and feels. They say that there's actually no reason medically to continue to do serological tests after late-stage (what they call Stage III) disease has been diagnosed. Further, the importance of DNA testing (PCR testing) and culture testing (in the US the only culture test I know of is done by Advanced Laboratory Services in Pennsylvania) is emphasized, although they acknowledge that sensitivity can be low, so negative PCR or culture test does not rule out chronic Lyme.

I'm still reading the document, but thought I would post it now on my blog. I will come back and comment if I have more to say about it. Please add your comments as you read through it. I'd like to hear your thoughts about it.

http://www.borreliose-gesellschaft.de/Texte/guidelines.pdf#page11

-Bob

Lyme Disease Testing: Bob Giguere from IGeneX

Here's an excellent video I just found on YouTube, discussing the various tests that one can and probably should get for Lyme disease. Also discussed is why the tests are controversial. The interviewee is Bob Giguere, from IGeneX labs.  

http://youtu.be/tqr2gTCnqvY

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The latest on mosquitoes

This story is not about Lyme disease, but it is about other diseases carried by mosquitoes. It is worth reading.

> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/travel/getting-the-jump-on-mosquitoes.html?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=TR_GTJ_20140402&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1388552400000&bicmet=1420088400000&_r=1