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Scientists discover a cause of lupus, possible way to reverse it

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Re: Scientists discover a cause of lupus, possible way to reverse it

#21

I wonder if any of these findings help us better understand me/cfs.

Maybe but the immune dysfunction goes further in ME/CFS its not just a problem of reduced CD4 and heightened CD8 (which are the two cell types they seem to be talking about) its a wider set of oddities that seem related to exhausted cells with not enough energy stuck in "there is infection near by" operation mode. It might help reduce symptoms that are caused by the imbalance so it would certainly be worth a trial wh…

>stuck in "there is infection near by" operation mode

There are bunch of articles on successful treatment of CFS with methotrexate (which causes B-cells depletion whereis original CFS was associated in particular with B-cells over-presence after say viral infections/etc.)

Re: Scientists discover a cause of lupus, possible way to reverse it

#24

I wonder if any of these findings help us better understand me/cfs.

Isn't thiamine tissue deficiency at the bottom of dysautonomia? Potentially leading to Alzheimer, MS, ALS over long periods of time if untreated depending on one's genetics and the way their body tries to adapt to it? I understand nobody tracks this over 30 years though. I think it's low-risk to try to address long-term tissue B1/B2/B3 deficiencies first and see if it helps.

"The initial symptoms of thiamine deficiency beriberi are those of dysautonomia [1], a broad term that describes any disease or malfunction of the autonomic nervous system. This includes postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), inappropriate sinus tachycardia (IST), vasovagal syncope, mitral valve prolapse dysautonomia, pure autonomic failure, neurocardiogenic syncope (NCS), neurally mediated hypotension (NMH), autonomic instability and a number of lesser-known disorders such as cerebral salt-wasting syndrome. Dysautonomia is associated with Lyme disease, primary biliary cirrhosis, multiple system atrophy (Shy–Drager syndrome) Ehlers–Danlos syndrome and Marfan syndrome for reasons that are not fully understood [2]. It has been hypothesized that the association of dysautonomia with so many different diagnoses is because a common form of dysautonomia originates from high calorie malnutrition. This leads to loss of oxidative efficiency (pseudo hypoxia) and subsequent disorganization of ANS controls that are mediated through the limbic system and brainstem."

Re: Scientists discover a cause of lupus, possible way to reverse it

#25
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You stash your drugs in a lupus textbook?" "It's never lupus"

Every Time “It’s Not Lupus” https://youtube.com/watch?v=uXOxXnZoYGQ

Out of sheer boredom, I started watching this, and got as far as an argument about whether or not some set of symptoms was lupus. Then I closed my laptop, tired of wasting my time. I sat quietly on the couch in my living room for a moment. My wife was watching television in the next room over, at a volume where the dialogue was clearly audible, and what do I hear but a woman state, "At that time, I was diagnosed with lupus"!

Re: Scientists discover a cause of lupus, possible way to reverse it

#26

Autoimmune diseases, of which lupus is but one of many, are essentially black boxes. It’s proven extraordinarily difficult to develop therapies in this area. As such, this is great news. Hopefully this research will encourage pharmaceutical and biotech companies to invest more resources into translating research findings into effective therapies. I haven’t read the paper yet, so I can’t comment on how this discovery…

I have a good feeling we're going to make a fairly big impact on cancer in our lifetimes with mRNA and other new discoveries in our lifetime. Autoimmune issues I'm feeling much less confident about. It seems like so many of the therapies are "turn down the immune system". I wish there was wider study into autoimmune derived mental health complications too. Maybe I'm totally wrong on this (and I'm very OK to be proven…

> Autoimmune issues I'm feeling much less confident about. It seems like so many of the therapies are "turn down the immune system".

The immune system has many branches, and you can effectively deplete one branch of the immune system while preserving the other branches to fight infection. For example with MS a very effective treatment is CD20+ B cell suppression, as rituximab does. For many people diagnosed with MS this has been effectively a "cure," in the sense that while they need to continually deplete their CD20+ B cells, their disease doesn't progress in any meaningful way, and their immune systems remain largely able to fight infection.

So we don't need to wholesale "turn down" the entire immune system for many autoimmune diseases. Rather, we need to surgically target specific parts of it and either suppress those parts or modify their behavior. Given the success we've seen with ritixumab and MS I'm more optimistic about our prospects for finding effective treatments for autoimmune conditions.

Re: Scientists discover a cause of lupus, possible way to reverse it

#27

I wonder if any of these findings help us better understand me/cfs.

Very likely. All of these illnesses are diseases of the cells. We're entering the golden age of immune cell science. You figure out what immune cells are causing disease and how to restore them.

Here the T cells are imbalanced and a specific protein is found to regulate the imbalance but the interferon is countering the protein's effects. Now you can target that in many ways and run all sorts of clinical trials.

Re: Scientists discover a cause of lupus, possible way to reverse it

#28
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every Time “It’s Not Lupus” https://youtube.com/watch?v=uXOxXnZoYGQ

Out of sheer boredom, I started watching this, and got as far as an argument about whether or not some set of symptoms was lupus. Then I closed my laptop, tired of wasting my time. I sat quietly on the couch in my living room for a moment. My wife was watching television in the next room over, at a volume where the dialogue was clearly audible, and what do I hear but a woman state, "At that time, I was diagnosed with…

Next, you'll see it appear in your social targeted ads.
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