posted
Microbes Infect. 2006 May 30; [Epub ahead of print] Links
Persistent brain infection and disease reactivation in relapsing fever borreliosis.
Larsson C, Andersson M, Pelkonen J, Guo BP, Nordstrand A, Bergstrom S.
Department of Molecular Biology, Umea University, SE-901 87 Umea, Sweden.
Relapsing fever, an infection caused by Borrelia spirochetes, is generally considered a transient, self-limiting disease in humans. The present study reveals that murine infection by Borrelia duttonii can be reactivated after an extended time as a silent infection in the brain, with no bacteria appearing in the blood and spirochete load comparable to the numbers in an infected tick. The host cerebral gene expression pattern is indistinguishable from that of uninfected animals, indicating that persistent bacteria are not recognized by the immune system nor cause noticeable tissue damage. Silent infection can be reactivated by immunosuppression, inducing spirochetemia comparable to that of initial densities. B. duttonii has never been found in any host except man and the tick vector. We therefore propose the brain to be a possible natural reservoir of the spirochete. The view of relapsing fever as an acute disease should be extended to include in some cases prolonged persistence, a feature characteristic of the related spirochetal infections Lyme disease and syphilis.
PMID: 16782384 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
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posted
What it says to me is that Bp can infect your brain and cause relapsing fever. We, on this board, have already agreed that it happens. These folks were studying Relapsing Fever, but had they been studying MS,ALS, Huntingtons, Alzheimer, Parkinsons,etc they may have come to the same conclusion.
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northstar
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They are referring to Borrelia duttonii, from a soft shell tick in Africa, which causes relapsing fever.
What I find interesting is that : 1. Lyme is defined as a disease from borrelia burg. senso stricto.
2. Borrelia organisms in ticks in U.S. have shown evidence of markers that resemble other types of borrelia (genetic diversity), with b. recurrentis & duttonii resembling b. lonestari. Evidence has been detected in SC, CA, and NY. (that is only the ones I have seen so far)
4. The b. dutonii of your referred article is capable of a dormant form in the brain, but when immune is compromised i.e. stress, they revert to active form.
These thoughts are the result of a 10 minute search. However, I think that this is an important foundation for the use of long term abx, whether pulsed, etc.
That is because our bodies may be infected with any one or combination of borrelia subspecies. If they test for only senso stricto, they are not going to find much.
Again, knowledge of borrelia and tick borne diseases in the medical field and in entomology is still in the Dark Ages.
They are trying to limit our treatment based on ignorance.
N.
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posted
To me what this says is that B.Burg's cousin exibits behaviour that is denied by the mainstream Lyme camp. Am I understanding it correctly?
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northstar
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Member # 7911
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------------------------------------------------------------------------ Myself, I view any tick species as being possibly pathogenic to humans. -------------------- Cave76: I'll drink to that! Aloe juice, of course! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ��� �� � �� � � �� �� ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To me what this says is that B.Burg's cousin exibits behaviour that is denied by the mainstream Lyme camp. Am I understanding it correctly?
-------------------- Newdurham: I interpreted it the same as you. I also noticed at the end, that they included lyme as having a "chronic" aspect, which is flatly denied by Camp A.
My focus at this time, in gathering info to state legislators and national legislators is to raise doubt
1. By showing there is possibility for unknown variants to potentially cause long term health sequelae (sp?), for which there are no tests.
2. By restricting physicians to short term treatments for an infection of whose source may be unknown, they are denying healthcare.
Therefore I support: 1. Detailed, indepth , appropriately designed/methodology, including dna/pcr (or whatever they use?) analysis to further investigate subspecies variability.
2. The clinicians judicious use of long term abx in tick borne infections, when they see a need, because to restrict that use, means denying treatment based on weak/doubtful/inconclusive/ reasons, e.g. based on reasonable doubt that Camp A does not have all the answers.
Preponderence of doubt?
N.
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dontlikeliver
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I am a bit slow today, but seeing that S. Bergstrom is one of the authors, I am sceptical as to whether it can be good as far as us chronic Lymies are concerned.
I read one of his papers just the other day, in which he basically said something along the lines of "lots of people think they have chronic Lyme disease. They are sick, but NOT with chronic Lyme disease"!
DLL
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northstar
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DLL: That is interesting. Perhaps my fault, as I said "chronic" when the paper said "persistent". Do you have the article?
Again, a usual problem with interchangeable use of terminology, when one defines a term one way, and another defines it another way...........maybe persistent does not equal chronic?
terms need to be agreed upon before they can be discussed, i.e. tertiary, chronic, late disseminated, late diagnosed & allowing entrenchment, etc.
Much confusion exists when terms are thrown out without a prior definition.....as if we all agreed.....which is an assumption. N.
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dontlikeliver
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I do have the article, but it's in Swedish, is that any good to you?
DLL
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