• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

GcMAF - a natural macrophage activating factor

consuegra

Senior Member
Messages
176
I have been reading about GcMAF, a natural macrophage activating factor. There is some information on it on the web and in blogs - in relation to certain cancers and also HIV. I understand that this is beginning to be used in CFS/ME. Does anyone know anything about this? Has anyone used it or know of its use? There is anecdotal evidence that it works against retroviruses.

Chris


http://cfspatientadvocate.blogspot.com
 

leelaplay

member
Messages
1,576
Researchers at Yale University have developed synthetic molecules capable of enhancing the body's immune response to HIV and HIV-infected cells, as well as to prostate cancer cells.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091105165527.htm

Look familiar?
091105165527-large.jpg

Fascinating Levi! Where's the green and purple?

Interesting implications for us.

islandfinn:)
 

jenbooks

Guest
Messages
1,270
This is a great approach and why not use it for borrelia and babesia too? TgNks for pointing this out.
 
A

Aftermath

Guest
Viral vs. Bacterial

This is a great approach and why not use it for borrelia and babesia too? TgNks for pointing this out.

I do not fully understand the specifics of the Yale research. Nonetheless, the pathogens you suggest are bacterial, not viral in nature like HIV.
 

acer2000

Senior Member
Messages
818
You know its interesting you mention this. consuegra, another forum member just posted something similar (although I don't think its the same research) in the "Antivirals, Antibiotics and Immune modulators" section.

http://forums.aboutmecfs.org/showthread.php?t=997

It describes a researcher who has an immune modulator that is able to activate macrophages to take out cancer in he claims HIV too. Its called GcMAF and here is an abstract of the HIV research:

Immunotherapy of HIV-infected patients with Gc protein-derived macrophage activating factor (GcMAF).

Very interesting stuff...
 

jenbooks

Guest
Messages
1,270
Aftermath, cancer cells are not viral. The idea is to prime or retrain the immune system to do it's job by recognizing the 'bad' cell and killing it. For instance our own natural antibodies in borrelia don't work because it changes it's antigenic coat rapidly and because when it encysyts it hides them. We generate a new set of antibodies when it changes them but each time it's like fighting a new infection. Cell therapy is being conducted on certain blood cancers at Baylor. In which Estein Barr is in the b-cells that have turned cancerous. After an initial EBV infection about 1% of b-cells carry EBV and the virus only expresses 'weak' antigens that don't upset the immune system and so it allows the EBV to persist. However if those cells turn malignant the immune system continues to let them live not realizing they are deadly. Removing a patients immune cells and training them to attack weak EBV then reinjecting them hascured some late stage cancers that had failed chemo . And no side effects. This study reminds me of that. Your immune system can do the job if it is not tricked by the pathogen. Or if it is retrained. There are various approaches. I have been thinking about this for a while but felt Lyme/cfs did not have enough attention.
 

Chris

Senior Member
Messages
845
Location
Victoria, BC
Gc-MAF stuff

Hi, this does look interesting, but warnings are out there; http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org has a long discussion "Cancer cured for good?" that includes a lively debate, and goes on to discuss claims that the stuff clears HIV too( PubMed PMID: 19031451 ) --a further search reveals that Yamamoto's outfit, Socrates Institute for Therapeutic Immunology, has run out of the stuff, and hopes to have it back in circulation soon--all interesting, but I don't expect immediate acceptance of it as a-or the-cure for anything. Still, there is always hope...

The stuff seems perfectly safe, and if you can find a doc who says s/he can get some, it might well be worth a trial...

Best, Chris
 

acer2000

Senior Member
Messages
818
Yeah I saw this too... its very interesting. Do you know if they are going to test this on XMRV? There is another compound called Bavituximab that looks promising as well. I wonder where these patients are that GcMAF supposedly cured?
 

cfs since 1998

Senior Member
Messages
604
"In the present study GcMAF therapy was given to nonanemic HIV-infected patients and found to be highly curative."

Just got around to reading this...very interesting. I heard they are having great success with it on cancer as well, so I would think that it has a lot of potential to help CFS/XMRV. Anyone know what this compound is, is it patented, who manufactures it, etc.?

Here's a link to another forum where they talk about it. It says they were out of stock at the time (2008) but the main researcher behind it said, "we can collaborate with your group for cancer therapy."
http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=22146&view=findpost&p=246405
 

acer2000

Senior Member
Messages
818
I posted about this on ProHealth as well, but I wonder if anyone has more info on this compound? Can you share which CFS doctor is interested in this?

I found this paper that showed GcMAF was useful in treating/curing prostate cancer:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2510818/

Its intriguing that this would be the case, given its antiviral properties and the idea that XMRV might cause or contribute to prostate cancer. Could the reason it works on prostate cancer be because its really treating XMRV?
 

FernRhizome

Senior Member
Messages
412
This is very interesting! I happen to know I have one genetic mutation for Gaucher's disease (it takes two mutations to have guacher's disease). But with one mutation a couple of my enzymes are abnormal and gaucher's involves macrophages!!!!!!

Does anyone else out there have any gaucher's mutations? I may post a thread on that topic in the general research topic area. ~FernRhziome
 

acer2000

Senior Member
Messages
818
The Gaucher's thing is interesting. If its really that common in Jews, you'd think there would be a lot more really sick jews. Makes you wonder. In any case, from my reading of the Yamamoto paper, I think the GcMAF therapy basically circumvents a method that HIV uses to supress macrophage activity - and thus evade immunity. Here is the abstract of the most recent article on GcMAF use in HIV patients:

Immunotherapy of HIV-Infected Patients With Gc Protein-Derived Macrophage Activating Factor (GcMAF) - Nobuto Yamamoto,1* Naofumi Ushijima,1 and Yoshihiko Koga2 - Journal of Medical Virology 81:16–26 (2009)

Serum Gc protein (known as vitamin D3-binding protein) is the precursor for the principal macro- phage activating factor (MAF). The MAF precur- sor activity of serum Gc protein of HIV-infected patients was lost or reduced because Gc protein is deglycosylated by a-N-acetylgalactosamini- dase (Nagalase) secreted from HIV-infected cells. Therefore, macrophages of HIV-infected patients having deglycosylated Gc protein can- not be activated, leading to immunosuppression. Since Nagalase is the intrinsic component of the envelope protein gp120, serum Nagalase activity is the sum of enzyme activities carried by both HIV virions and envelope proteins. These Nagalase carriers were already complexed with anti-HIV immunoglobulin G (IgG) but retained Nagalase activity that is required for infectivity. Stepwise treatment of purified Gc protein with immobilized b-galactosidase and sialidase gen- erated the most potent macrophage activating factor (termed GcMAF), which produces no side effects in humans. Macrophages activated by administration of 100 ng GcMAF develop a large amount of Fc-receptors as well as an enormous variation of receptors that recognize IgG-bound and unbound HIV virions. Since latently HIV- infected cells are unstable and constantly release HIV virions, the activated macrophages rapidly intercept the released HIV virions to prevent reinfection resulting in exhaustion of infected cells. After less than 18 weekly administrations of 100 ng GcMAF for nonanemic patients, they exhibited low serum Nagalase activities equiv- alent to healthy controls, indicating eradication of HIV-infection, which was also confirmed by no infectious center formation by provirus inducing agent-treated patient PBMCs. No recurrence occurred and their healthy CD + cell counts were maintained for 7 years.

PubMed Link

Link to Full Paper in JMV 2009