What really is Multiple Sclerosis?

Good question, isn’t it?

Official medicine is speaking about MS everyday. But still – what are they speaking about?

I went to Google and asked for definition of Multiple Sclerosis. You can see the result of my inquiry in article On MS definition. All 26 definitions are more or less incorrect. In reality it’s a completely useless mess. Yeah.

I’ve written another article MS – name ambiguity on the subject. It starts with MS description by National Multiple Sclerosis Society (USA). I analyzed it carefully and find it to be completely misleading.

One more MS definition can be found in article of Wikipedia.org:

Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease in which the body’s immune response attacks a person’s central nervous system (brain and spinal cord), leading to demyelination… The name multiple sclerosis refers to scars (scleroses—better known as plaques or lesions) in the white matter of the brain and spinal cord, which is mainly composed of myelin.

Almost any neurological symptom can appear with the disease…

Although much is known about the mechanisms involved in the disease process, the cause remains unknown. Theories include genetics or infections. Different environmental risk factors have also been found.

That’s better – MS really is an autoimmune disorder. Unfortunately, I still have no idea, what is a key difference between ‘immune response’ and ‘immune system’. Isn’t this explanation perfect: “Almost any neurological symptom can appear with the disease”. Please remember – we are speaking about CNS damage! MS triggers have been mentioned only, without ANY further explanation. However, you can find some information in a chapter Triggers of my website.

* * *

According to National MS Society (USA) description , in order to make a diagnosis of MS, the physician must:

• Find evidence of damage in at least two separate areas of the central nervous system (CNS), which includes the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves AND
• Find evidence that the damage occurred at least one month apart AND
• Rule out all other possible diagnoses

According to the Criteria all a neurologist has to do to diagnose MS is to determine position and level of CNS damage according to strict regulations. Regretfully, they have chosen to keep silent about possible triggers etc.

* * *

Looking closely, it’s easy to see the complexity of the degenerative process.

Obviously, before MS can be diagnosed, a succession of the body  damaging events must happen:

• The body is heavily polluted so one’s immune system gets detuned – that way autoimmunity starts
• Over-activated immune system starts the crusade against a new enemy – own body CNS, especially myelin
• To get to the brain, the blood brain barrier – brain safeguard – has to be damaged
• Significant damage to nerve covering (myelin) in many CNS positions has to be done
• Accumulated CNS damages lead to significant neurological symptoms
• CNS damages (lesions or scars) are clearly visible via MRI scanning etc

Hopefully, knowledge of these underlying degenerative processes could clarify some activities towards body stabilizing and healing. Obviously, these should involve mainly detoxification and immune system strengthening.

That’s my answer to a question What really Multiple Sclerosis is?

Autoimmunity – let’s replace immune system?

What happens, when some part of your car or computer etc. wears down?

Simply. You visit your car or computer etc. mechanic to get that part replaced.

Some time ago medical doctors (human body mechanics) came in with the idea of replacing some faulty body parts – heart, liver… Obviously, everything is far more complicated in a living body case. Body has own immune system – powerful versatile safeguards, that can destroy literally anything (organic) inside the host body.

Immune system is so widespread, that it seems to be much easier to name body parts that aren’t parts of immune system than conversely

That’s fine – researchers developed subsidiary idea – to weaken the safeguard.  Present official synthetic pharmaceuticals, surgery and radiation based medicine has all powerful tools to demolish everything they want.

Again, nothing seems to be impossible nowadays – even living with weak immune system. But – pssst! – the patient must be silent – don’t even dare speaking about quality of life.

But what to do, when body’s own safeguard (immune system) for some reason becomes faulty?

A group of medical researchers suggested a new idea – replace the immune system! Researchers from the University – institution, once created to spread lucent humanistic ideas.

So, hmm – nice idea. But wait a moment – what about existing immune system? It’s faulty, but still – it guards the body against all environmental germs and performs lots of other highly important for body survival tasks.

More about problems and ways of immune system replacement (for some reason they call it reboot) – in articles 1. Immune System Reboot Could Treat Autoimmune Disease and 2. Stem cell transplant can grow new immune system in certain mice, Stanford researchers find.

Read, if you like. For me it’s a sort of terrible nightmare of a psychedelic person… OK, these are creations of present pharmaceutical – medical conglomerate.

But I still have some (not so) simple questions. Look:

• Our toxic reality – researchers noticed influence of industrial chemicals on spreading of all sorts of chronic degenerative disorders
• Welcome – Autoimmune Epidemic – key world researchers agree that global spreading of autoimmune disorders is mainly caused by environmental pollution
• Immunotoxins – Autoimmunity – MS – it’s clarified how man-made chemicals can trigger Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and any other autoimmune disorder

My main question remains:

Can it be that scientists are working in growing isolation? Or is it some special kind of “scientific” confusion – when one group knows nothing about results of others? Isn’t it similar to Health and wellness problems of information overload?

Welcome – Autoimmune Epidemic

What’s all this about? New flu pandemic? No, that’s autoimmune epidemic!

Book “The Autoimmune Epidemic: Bodies Gone Haywire in a World Out of Balance–and the Cutting-Edge Science that Promises Hope” (2008) by
Donna Jackson Nakazawa,
an autoimmune sufferer herself

Foreword to “The Autoimmune Epidemic”
by Douglas Kerr, M.D., Ph.D.:

• founder and director of the Johns Hopkins Transverse Myelitis (TM) Center, the only center in the world dedicated to developing new therapies for this paralyzing autoimmune disorder
• faculty neurologist and neuroscientist at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore Maryland, for the last decade evaluating and treating patients with autoimmune disorders of the nervous system

He explains:

• Increasingly, I see that more and more patients are being felled by this devastating disorder (Transverse Myelitis)
• Infants as young as five months old can get TM and some are left permanently paralyzed and dependent upon a ventilator to breathe. But this is supposed to be a rare disorder, reportedly affecting only one in a million people
• Prior to the 1950s, there were a grand total of four cases reported in the medical literature
• Currently, my colleagues at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and I hear about or treat hundreds of new cases every year
• In the multiple sclerosis clinic, where I also see patients, the number of cases likewise continues to climb

This really trustworthy expert is sharing his collected information:

• Autoimmune diseases have not always been this common. The prevalence of autoimmune diseases like systemic lupus erythematosus, or lupus, multiple sclerosis, and type 1 diabetes is on the rise
• In some cases, autoimmune diseases are three times more common now than they were several decades ago. These changes are not due to increased recognition of these disorders or altered diagnostic criteria
• Rather, more people are getting autoimmune disorders than ever before

Later he’s providing a short explanation about operation of  immune system:

• The immune system … is charged with an amazingly complex task: to recognize and ignore all the cells and tissues within the body and – at the same time – to attack any and all “invaders”, foreign cells, viruses, bacteria, or fungi
• …wondrously complex immune system can successfully protect our bodies while recognizing and eliminating billions of distinct infections with which we come in contact. When functioning well, the immune system immediately recognizes a virus or bacteria that has gotten into our body and initiates a spirited and robust attack on the invader, allowing us to recover from a cold after only a few days
• But this precisely choreographed dance between the immune system and the tissues it is designed to protect goes badly awry in autoimmune diseases. In such diseases, the immune system mistakes friend for foe and begins to attack the very tissues it was designed to protect. The soldiers guarding the castle turn and attack it

He asks rhetoric questions and explains:

• But what triggers autoimmunity to occur? Throughout human history, our exposure to such myriad infectious agents has triggered an evolutionary arms race. Our immune system has evolved increasingly sophisticated countermeasures and recognition systems to combat the increasing diversity of the infectious agents with which we come in contact
• But this increasing sophistication comes with a cost: an increased chance of the system breaking down. We have evolved right to the edge of the immune system’s capacity…
• Now, over the last 40 years, something has been pushing that system over the edge. Something is causing the immune system to increasingly make mistakes in which the line becomes blurred, the immune system attacks the body itself, and autoimmune disease occurs
• In all likelihood, much of the reason for this often catastrophic mistake of the immune system comes from the countless environmental toxins to which we are currently exposed—toxins that interfere with the way the immune system communicates with the rest of the body

Some statistics (are you here?):

• The numbers are staggering: one in twelve Americans—and one in nine women—will develop an autoimmune disorder
• And since it is clear that not every patient with an autoimmune disease is correctly diagnosed, the prevalence is certainly higher than that…

…

Concerned about health in general or autoimmune disorder in particular? Lots of info in the book:

The Autoimmune Epidemic
Price: USD 10.20

Final words:

• You will leave this book with no reservations about the veracity of the conclusions: put simply, there is no doubt that autoimmune diseases are on the rise and our increasing environmental exposure to toxins and chemicals is fueling this rise
• The research is sound
• The conclusions unassailable

Reading The Autoimmune Epidemic is a necessary first step Reading The Autoimmune Epidemic is a life-altering event
It needs to be

Pollution, DNA changes and MS

The other day, searching for health-related news, I came across such an article:

Pollution Can Change Your DNA in 3 Days, Study Suggests

As source was quite reliable – National Geographic News and I am interested in the subject (multiple sclerosis is autoimmune disorder), I started reading the article carefully:

• Breathing in polluted air may wreak havoc on our DNA, reprogramming genes in as few as three days and causing increased rates of cancer and other diseases
• The same damage may occur in city dwellers exposed to normal air, the researchers say
• …exposed workers’ DNA was damaged…
• Reduced-size gene groups … have also been found in the blood DNA of lung cancer patients
• You might not have to be a steelworker to sustain this kind of genetic damage…
• …the same damage can occur in city dwellers—the effects, however, take weeks or months to show up
• For instance, … previous research shows elderly people … had DNA damage…

What I am missing is consistency. Some aspects are well documented:

• almost all manufactured chemicals act as pollutants, showing up as xenobiotics, immunotoxins, neurotoxins etc.
• the only mentioned result from exposure to pollutants is lung cancer. They don’t mention autoimmune disorders and other pollution-related health problems at all – they mention only “other diseases”
• there is no explanation what happens when DNA has been changed

To my knowledge, the immune system is a full time body guard, recognizing and distinguishing between self and non-self. Next step is to destroy non-self. But what changed DNA really is – self or non-self?

It seems to me, immune system in such situations must be ‘confused’ – sometimes gets suppressed, sometimes overactive… And as degree of DNA change most probably depends on pollutant (pollutants cocktail), dose and exposure, result is rather unpredictable.

So number of autoimmune disorders (different ways of overactive immune system acting) is already approaching 100. And definitely multiple sclerosis (MS) is among many others.