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Stem Cells

Rockt

Senior Member
Messages
292
Thank you Rich. Very informative and possibly another option, though has he had success with any CFS cases?

With regards to stem cell treatment, when is the first, (next), group going to Panama? Is this group plan still in effect? Haven't heard anything in quite awhile.
 

richvank

Senior Member
Messages
2,732
Thank you Rich. Very informative and possibly another option, though has he had success with any CFS cases?

With regards to stem cell treatment, when is the first, (next), group going to Panama? Is this group plan still in effect? Haven't heard anything in quite awhile.

Hi, Rockt.

I don't know if Dr. Steenblock has treated CFS cases with stem cells. It seems that infections are an important issue with this type of treatment. I think that some of the neurological diseases he has treated might well have an infectious basis that has not yet been identified or verified. How XMRV will figure into stem cell treatments, I don't know. I do think that Dr. Steenblock may have more experience with this type of treatment than any other docs in the U.S., since he started in 2006.

Best regards,

Rich
 

Rrrr

Senior Member
Messages
1,591
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100609083231.htm

Web address:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/
100609083231.htm


Gamma Interferon a Wake-Up Call for Stem Cell Response to Infection

ScienceDaily (June 11, 2010) — Most of the time, the body's blood-forming (hematopoietic) stem cells remain dormant, with just a few producing blood cells and maintaining a balance among the different types.

However, invading bacteria can be a call-to-arms, awaking the sleeping stem cells and prompting them to produce immune system cells that fight the foreign organisms. The "bugler" that awakes the stem cells in this battle is gamma interferon, a front-line protein defender against bacterial infection, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in a report that appears in the current issue of the journal Nature.

"We are looking at the normal function of stem cells," said Dr. Margaret Goodell, professor of molecular and human genetics at BCM and director of the Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine (STaR) Center. She is the report's senior author. "One of those is to respond to an infection."

Goodell and her colleagues knew that cells farther along in the differentiation process responded to infection, increasing the production of immune cells.

"We were sure there was a mechanism by which hematopoietic stem cells respond to infection, but it was not obvious," she said. They started their work with gamma interferon because they knew it played an important role in bacterial infection.

The collaboration and talents of two researchers in her laboratory -- first co-authors Drs. Megan T. Baldridge and Katherine Y. King -- facilitated the work with mice that led to this finding, said Goodell. Both are at BCM.

"I think our findings represent an exciting new avenue for studying hematopoiesis," said King. "By viewing the hematopoietic stem cell as the source of the immune system, we are finding fundamental ways in which the immune response affects bone marrow. This is the first time that anyone has extensively studied hematopoietic stem cells in the context of an in vivo model (a living organism) of infection."

"As a specialist in infectious diseases, I see many patients whose bone marrow no longer produces sufficient blood cells as a consequence of their infection. This is particularly relevant in chronic infections such as mycobacterial diseases (that include tuberculosis) and AIDS," said King. "Our studies lend insight into the causes of this decrease in bone marrow function during such infections, and I hope the work will someday lead to new therapies."

Studies in mice with a chronic or long-term infection called Mycobacterium avium show that a greater proportion of a particular subset of their cells called long-term hematopoietic (blood-forming) stem cells are active. Gamma interferon prompts this activity. Mice that lack gamma interferon have fewer of these stem cells active during infection.

These findings show that gamma interferon not only activates stem cells during infection, but also regulate stem cells in normal times, enabling them to maintain the types of blood cells that exist in proportion or homeostasis.

"Our model predicts that bacterial infection detected by sentinel immune cells stimulates the increased release of gamma interferon, which then travels through the blood stream to activate HSCs (hematopoietic stem cells) in the bone marrow, leading to expansion and mobilization of the immune progenitor pool (the cells that ultimately produce immune system cells)," the researchers wrote.

They found that sustained activity by the hematopoietic stem cells can lead to at least transient problems with the quality of the stem cells and their abilities to stimulate production of more immune system cells.

"One of the most important things we found is the chronic infections (such as tuberculosis or HIV/AIDS) may be lead to bone marrow exhaustion," said Baldridge. "We knew that a condition called anemia of chronic disease exists, and this could be one of the contributing factors."

Funding for this work came from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the Adeline B. Landa Fellowship of the Texas Children's Hospital Auxiliary, the Simmons Foundation Collaborative Research Fund, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.
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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Baylor College of Medicine.

Journal Reference:

1. Megan T. Baldridge, Katherine Y. King, Nathan C. Boles, David C. Weksberg, Margaret A. Goodell. Quiescent haematopoietic stem cells are activated by IFN-γ in response to chronic infection. Nature, 2010; 465 (7299): 793 DOI: 10.1038/nature09135

Need to cite this story in your essay, paper, or report? Use one of the following formats:
APA

MLA
Baylor College of Medicine (2010, June 11). Gamma interferon a wake-up call for stem cell response to infection. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 20, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com* /releases/2010/06/100609083231.htm

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
 

Chris

Senior Member
Messages
845
Location
Victoria, BC
Rrrr, many thanks for finding and communicating this--a very interesting and somewhat disquieting study. I guess the practical application is to be careful if you are using Stem-Kine or another stem cell mobilizer, and indeed any immune modulator that includes a mobilizing substance, like AHCC; I am taking both at the moment, and have been taking periodic breaks. Nancy Klimas and Cheney both pulse Immunovir, and I shall be more careful than before to take breaks with both the stuffs I am taking now (I am generally I think slowly improving on this diet). Bone marrow exhaustion is obviously a real possibility, even without taking mobilizers. Thanks again! Best, Chris
 
Rrrr, many thanks for finding and communicating this--a very interesting and somewhat disquieting study. I guess the practical application is to be careful if you are using Stem-Kine or another stem cell mobilizer, and indeed any immune modulator that includes a mobilizing substance, like AHCC; I am taking both at the moment, and have been taking periodic breaks. Nancy Klimas and Cheney both pulse Immunovir, and I shall be more careful than before to take breaks with both the stuffs I am taking now (I am generally I think slowly improving on this diet). Bone marrow exhaustion is obviously a real possibility, even without taking mobilizers. Thanks again! Best, Chris
I am also taking imunovir - can you explain why we should pulse it. I'm sorry I couldn't see where this was explained - brain fog and all. I haven't been pulsing it as the first time I took it and recovered completely - until I had a relapse 4 years later -I took it every day, firstly for 18 months - when I felt it had worked and was the reason I was 100% better - and I continued on it for another 2 years then cut the dose down to 2 per day for 2 years. It was then I've had this relapse and have been on the 6 per day - now for 18 months. Every now and then I have a weekend off as I know Dr Klimas recommends this pulsing but wondering if I should pulse more seriously.
 

Chris

Senior Member
Messages
845
Location
Victoria, BC
Frankie, I think the answer may lie in that very interesting essay that Rrrr found--"chronic infections...may be lead to bone marrow exhaustion....a condition called anemia of chronic disease exists"--not something one wants to provoke! Since immune modifiers seem to work in part by stimulating the bone marrow to express stem cells, then constant stimulation could.... Rrrr could probably explain this better, but that is my simple shot. Best, Chris.
 

mojoey

Senior Member
Messages
1,213
I thought Cheney recommended pulsing to prevent pathogen resistance, the same rationale for why we should rotate/pulse probiotics? But I'm also not sure
 

mojoey

Senior Member
Messages
1,213
Although if immunovir is just a modulator and has no direct antiviral activity, The probiotics comparison wouldn't work. There have been claims that immunovir does have direct antiviral properties tho.
 

Daffodil

Senior Member
Messages
5,875
on the twiv podcast, dr. racaniello and the others went on and on about what a bad idea stem cell treatment is for this disease. i wonder why??? i am thinking about stem cell treatments down the road. i take it that cheney recommends this particular panama clinic? is he affilated with it? i notice they do this treatment in germany, too.
 

mojoey

Senior Member
Messages
1,213
(reposted from jenbooks' stem cell thread)

XMRV replication is a huge issue with any type of stem cells. Cheney does indeed have his patients get cord blood stem cells from Panama, which lowers the risk versus getting your own stem cells (if you have a retrovirus that is) because of the chance of getting foreign alleles from the donor, but unless those genes mark resistance to XMRV like the HIV-resistant stem cells mentioned above, theoretically tthe retrovirus will still replicate.

to clarify, it has already been scientifically established that the immune system does not reject cord blood stem cells, so matching HLA is not an issue. There have been no cases of graft versus host disease at Panama or Costa Rica. The retroviral replication is my concern.
 

Chris

Senior Member
Messages
845
Location
Victoria, BC
Rrrr---!!! I'll believe that when.... well, never mind--I should just keep my big mouth shut...
Joey, I guess it might depend on just how he thought Immunovir fought pathogens--by direct action, or by stimulating/shifting the immune system to become more active against them? I suppose in either case resistance might develop--ugh, how do we fight these things? But clearly (and especially if what we have heard about the Alter paper is true--roll on Tuesday) there are many people walking around whose immune systems are keeping XMRV at bay. I just want to become one of them! (If of course I have it--have not been tested for that or indeed for anything else--just have loads of symptoms that fit....). Best, Chris
 

mojoey

Senior Member
Messages
1,213
This is just my very barbaric hunch, but I think it's overly optimistic to think that we who have come down with ME/CFS could become like those whose immune systems are keeping XMRV at bay using therapies that do not specifically target XMRV. Just from my own observations, a full-blown remission from ME/CFS is one in a million, so I believe that once the damage is done, very few terrain-reestablishing remedies will be able to put XMRV into the state in which it once existed when we lived normal lives. In short, I'm guessing that it will be a one-way road from XMRV-pos healthy life to XMRV-pos neuro-immune disorder, without the intervention of aggressive anitretoviral activity. Many HIV-pos patients never get AIDS (e.g. Magic Johnson), but I've never heard of an AIDS patient spontaneously remitting from AIDS without ARVs. Of course, we have a different type of virus but the one-way pattern seems consistent.

One reason I say this is because I've been doing just that very type of Bechamp-based therapy using Sanum for the last 8 months and I have not improved like other patients that have tested XMRV-negative and are undergoing the same therapy. Our trajectories have looked clearly different--they have improved from this therapy and I have clearly declined in the last 8 months. Perhaps reestablishing optimal terrain will work for retroviruses but it definitely seems to take more time than those whom do not have a predominant retrovirus. Besides outward discrepancies, these other patients have shown improvement on lab results, whereas I still show the basement NK cell function and neutropenia that has bled my lab reports for the last 4 years.

After talking with Peterson, we both agree that some form of immune modulation + anti-XMRV strategy will be necessary for XMRV-pos patients. The thing with ampligen is it kills XMRV in the test tube, so that may be why it has had the track record in CFS patients that it has compared with other drugs that are purely immunomodulatory in nature, and also why many patients like Mary Schweitzer and Andrea Whittemore (as Cort reported, "who had became dangerously ill after having to go off Ampligen" - http://aboutmecfs.org/Rsrch/XMRVBuzz.aspx) relapse upon stopping the drug.

Cort recently reported:
"We've heard reports that Ampligen was more helpful in patients with documented XMRV infections than without them"

Peterson agrees with me that XMRV may very well be a distinguishing factor in success with stem cell therapy.
 

Chris

Senior Member
Messages
845
Location
Victoria, BC
Hi, Joey; I expect you are right--I shall wait for the XMRV test and treatment to begin to settle down and then reassess--till then I shall keep pulsing Stem-Kine and AHCC, which does seem to be doing some good; my blood pressure has really normalized nicely, I am feeling somewhat better most of the time (no huge change, but ...), and now there seem to be signs that the modest hernia that is one legacy of the heart surgery of 2004 is beginning to diminish--I am watching it with great interest, and have even measured it to try to avoid being taken in by false hopes--will report if there is measurable diminishing! Chris
 

Rrrr

Senior Member
Messages
1,591
thanks, chris, for yr continuted reports on stem-kine and AHCC. i don't know about AHCC, but another day i'll research it.

joey: when you write: "Peterson agrees with me that XMRV may very well be a distinguishing factor in success with stem cell therapy." what do you mean? taht if you have XMRV you should or should not do stem cells?
 

mojoey

Senior Member
Messages
1,213
He won't go that far. He only knows of 3 patients that have done stem cells: one got a lot better, one a lot worse, one par for the course, and he doesn't know the pre-stem cell XMRV status of these folks. He just agreed that xmrv replication with the stem cells is a very valid worry.
 
Messages
87
On the immunovir pulsing, (with weekends off) I believe one additional reason is to avoid the build-up of uric acid and the possible, though unlikely, development of gout. Taking weekends off seems to minimize this risk.
 

Chris

Senior Member
Messages
845
Location
Victoria, BC
Rrrr, AHCC is Active Hexose Correlated Compound, a modified extract of several mushrooms, discovered in Japan almost 20 years ago, and much used there. You will find quite a bit of research on PubMed, and can check the www.aor.ca website too for info. I suspect some overlap with the mushroom component of Stem-Kine. Nancy Klimas recently endorsed it as a useful immune modulator--I can't now remember if in her talk on the Invest in ME DVD, or somewhere else in print--sorry, you know how memory is with us folks. Best, Chris
 

Daffodil

Senior Member
Messages
5,875
i used to take a very expensive mushroom extract that is supposed to improve NK cell count. its used in japan for cancer...cannot remember name but dr. lombardi suggested some mushroom extract to me twice. probably the same one.
 

cfs since 1998

Senior Member
Messages
603
i used to take a very expensive mushroom extract that is supposed to improve NK cell count. its used in japan for cancer...cannot remember name but dr. lombardi suggested some mushroom extract to me twice. probably the same one.

That probably was AHCC. I've been on it for a six months now. You can find it at a pretty good price here. I was taking Transfer Point Beta Glucan too but it gave me neuropathy.