Infection - then autoimmune disease

[Gabes-Apg]

zizzle, i think this article explains your EPV - MC suspicions

It is enthusing that the answers seem to be coming to the surface ie proof that we were not abducted and reprogrammed by aliens.



http://www.healthcanal.com/infections/3 ... sease.html

Australian scientists have confirmed a ‘weak link’ in the immune system – identifying the exact conditions under which an infection can trigger an autoantibody response, a process not clearly understood until now.

We have known for many years that autoimmune diseases such as rheumatic fever and Guillain-Barré syndrome (where the body makes antibodies that attack the heart and peripheral nerves respectively) can occur after the body makes immune responses against certain infectious micro-organisms.

We have not been able to explain exactly how such examples of infection-driven autoimmunity occur, however, nor why our bodies seem unable to prevent them.

Our immune cells, such as the antibody-creating B cells, go through processes when they are first formed that ensure they are able to identify our own bodies, and therefore avoid self-attack. These processes are generally reliable as they take place in a steady, regulated way.

B cells go through a second and much more chaotic phase of development, however, when the body is fending off disease or infection. In order to cope with the immeasurable range of microbes in our environment, B cells have evolved the ability to mutate their antibody genes randomly until they produce one that sticks strongly to the invader. At that point, the ‘successful’ B cells proliferate and flood the system with these new antibodies.

This ‘high affinity antibody’ generation occurs very rapidly within specialised environments in the lymph system known as ‘germinal centres’. Most of the time, germinal centres serve us well, helping us fight disease and build up a protective armory for the future.

Unfortunately, the urgency and speed at which B cells mutate within the germinal centre, as well as the random nature of the process, creates a unique problem. Sometimes the antibody created to fight the invader, or ‘antigen’, also happens to match ‘self’ and has the potential to cause autoimmune attack.

Dr Tyani Chan and Associate Professor Robert Brink from Sydney’s Garvan Institute of Medical Research developed sophisticated mouse models to investigate when and how this happens. They demonstrated that when antigen is abundant and generally available throughout the body, rogue autoantibody-generating B cells are deleted and autoimmunity avoided. Conversely, when target antigen is located only in a tissue or organ remote from the germinal centre, B cells capable of reacting against both antigen and ‘self’ are able to escape the germinal centre and produce autoantibodies. Their finding is published in the prestigious international journal Immunity.

“Essentially we’ve shown there’s a big hole in self-tolerance when it comes to cross-reactive autoantibodies that can attack organ-specific targets,” said Brink.

“Our finding explains a lot about how autoimmune conditions that target particular organs such as the heart or nervous system could develop after an infection. It also suggests that if you know enough about the disease and the molecular messaging systems involved, it may be possible in future to modulate the germinal centre response.”

The team will continue to use their new mouse model to study the various molecular reactions involved in the progression of an autoimmune response.


ABOUT GARVAN
The Garvan Institute of Medical Research was founded in 1963. Initially a research department of St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, it is now one of Australia's largest medical research institutions with over 600 scientists, students and support staff. Garvan's main research programs are: Cancer, Diabetes & Obesity, Immunology and Inflammation, Osteoporosis and Bone Biology and Neuroscience. Garvan's mission is to make significant contributions to medical science that will change the directions of science and medicine and have major impacts on human health. The outcome of Garvan's discoveries is the development of better methods of diagnosis, treatment, and ultimately, prevention of disease.

[tex]

Hmmmm. I'm a little skeptical about this claim, but if it turns out to be true, they've discovered a very profound loophole in the immune system.

What makes me skeptical is the fact that virtually every invasion by a pathogen is organ-specific, certainly at least initially. That means that this theory would make the immune system vulnerable to making that mistake virtually every time that some part of the body is "invaded" by any form of pathogen, something that happens many times every day, most days.

It's very hard to believe that such a sophisticated immune system would have such a blatant (and downright dumb) defect. There has to be much more involved than what these researchers have discovered/disclosed. Besides, if what they say is true, why don't we develop autoimmune reactions to rinoviruses, (in the bronchial tubes or lungs), or salmonella (in the intestines), staph bacteria (on the skin), strep bacteria in the esophagus, etc.? Autoimmune reactions never develop in any of those common situations.

Thanks for a very interesting article, Gabes,
Tex

[Gabes-Apg]

a profound loophole in the immune system, - wouldn't that explain the dramatic increase in autoimmune conditions in current society?

something within our lifestyles of the past 100 years has created this issue with our immune systems - re written their coding language?

and why people that live in remote villages, living as their ancestors did, dont get autoimmune conditions

[tex]

a profound loophole in the immune system, - wouldn't that explain the dramatic increase in autoimmune conditions in current society?

It certainly could, but if what they say is true, that loophole has almost surely existed since Homo erectus first walked on this planet, almost 2 million years ago. At first glance, it doesn't seem logical that such a loophole could exist for almost 2 million years and then suddenly become a liability a few generations ago.

and why people that live in remote villages, living as their ancestors did, don't get autoimmune conditions

Actually, the reason why those people don't develop autoimmune disease is because virtually all of them are hosts for intestinal helminths, which as we know, guarantees immunity to autoimmune symptoms. So no one would be able to determine if those populations were susceptible to autoimmune disease, anyway, as long as their intestines were populated with helminths

If you are closely analyzing what I've said so far in this post, then you will be quick to point out that the loophole probably did exist all that time, but the suppression of helminths in developed countries during the last century or so has opened the door for the escalation of autoimmune disease, due to that immune system loophole.

And you might be correct, because it's certainly possible that helminths might have masked the problem with the immune system loophole for millions of years. The point is, we evolved with intestinal parasites, so if such an immune system defect did exist, it wouldn't have mattered one iota, because 2 million years ago, there was no reason to believe that 2 million years in the future, helminths would be eliminated as a human parasite.

Buuuuuuuut, as someone who has a huge amount of respect for the intricacy and the sophistication of the human body, (and especially for our incredibly complex immune system), I still have a problem accepting that such a sophisticated immune system could have such an unsophisticated defect. LOL. I suspect that as those researchers (or someone else) explore the situation further, over the years, they will discover that they oversimplified their analysis, and overlooked something of critical importance.

Tex

[Gabes-Apg]

i love the way your brain thinks!!!

what ever the 'issue' is in our intricate sophisticated bodies, there are influences in our lives over the past 100 years that have allowed auto immune conditions to;

a) have chronic symptoms,
b) be on the increase of incidence
c) widening in its influence, across the world

*sigh* i wonder if we will get the answers in our lifetimes.


in one of my many pondering moments, back in 2005 when drunk in a bar in Papua New Guinea, i may or may not have shook hands and 'got married' to a guy who was due to return to the village to assist the elders. Had I actually gone and lived in the highlands, in a fairly pure, plain lifestyle - could i have managed to stop the MC process?? mmmmm

[tex]

in one of my many pondering moments, back in 2005 when drunk in a bar in Papua New Guinea, i may or may not have shook hands and 'got married' to a guy who was due to return to the village to assist the elders.

Had I actually gone and lived in the highlands, in a fairly pure, plain lifestyle - could i have managed to stop the MC process?? mmmmm

Probably, IMO, but that would be doing it the hard way. No wait . . . that would be doing it the easy way — the way we are going about it now is the hard way.

Tex

[Gabes-Apg]

Probably, IMO, but that would be doing it the hard way. No wait . . . that would be doing it the easy way — the way we are going about it now is the hard way.

Exactly!!!! tingtingk bilong gabes em buggered up, gabes gat ples gone pinas
(gabes mind was muddled, she should have gone to the village)


Yes the event became an important part of my safety briefings to staff/consultants travelling to PNG - DO NOT shake hands when intoxicated - it is a contract.
i never kissed the guy, but because we shook hands, it was a contract.

[tex]

I'll have to remember that if I ever get to PNG. I always wanted to go there, when I was in high school, to photograph the birds of paradise and bower birds.

Tex

[ant]

something within our lifestyles of the past 100 years has created this issue with our immune systems - re written their coding language?

When did food in "developed" societies start to become an industry? About 100 years ago? And when did people in such societies start spending more and more time indoors (and out of the sun)?

Gabes, I like your PGN adventure. A case of "quickly, quickly catchee Gabby"??

Best, Ant

[Gabes-Apg]

Ant - he he he love it!

Tex- we have bower birds here in Aus, few years ago i lived in a semi rural area, and there were bower birds, we couldnt use blue pegs on the clothes line as they would take them. Also they changed the colour of the lids and round seal for milk cartons from blue to white, as the bower birds were attracted to the colour blue they used, the round seal part (that seals the lid until you twist it) would get stuck on their beaks etc.

Albeit i have only seen bird of paradise in a zoo, not in the PNG forest.

PNG is a beautiful country, i would even go on to say that the high doses of doxycycline to travel there was worth the MC, to be able to experience PNG.

[brandy]

Gabes,

ROFLMAO--your post on PNG and the tribal guy is hysterical! I saw Tex's response and I thought "What the heck is PNG?" Brandy

[Gabes-Apg]

Brandy
the funnier part of this story is that when this happened, i had only in the previous week got finalisation on a divorce that had gone on for 3 years through the court system, where i had worked 2 jobs and outlayed over $40k in legal bills!

Also as part of the 'contract' i had negotiated that
a) i would not change my last name to his
b) he could only have 4 wives max
c) i would not breast feed any pigs

and he still wanted to marry me!!

(in PNG the order of hierachy in the village is elder, eldest male, pig, children then wife - it is common for the women to breast feed baby pigs)

the next morning in the office, when the receptionist (png national who was at the bar) told me 'my husband was on the phone' i fell off my chair!!!

[tex]

i would even go on to say that the high doses of doxycycline to travel there was worth the MC, to be able to experience PNG.

Hmmmmm. I'd have to think about that for a while. LOL. I had forgotten that the antibiotics required for traveling to PNG were the likely cause of your MC.

It would probably be better to just enjoy watching the bower birds in OZ, and pass on traveling to PNG.

Tex

[tex]

Gabes,

By the way, you appear to have negotiated a pretty shrewd contract, despite your possibly alcohol-fogged thinking. LOL.

Tex

[brandy]

OMG, it is hard for me to wrap my mind around the breast feeding of the baby pigs! Or piglets!