Llewellyn King interviews Dr. Kenny De Meirleir: ME/CFS Alert, Episode 42

[Sushi]

Yes, their are Vikings in my past too, though I have not done 23andme, I know from family history. My mother and grandfather had red hair.

I think that those guys even got to North America--maybe Nova Scotia? And I'm sure everywhere they went they were not shy about spreading their genes around.

Here is another strange one: there is a close linguistic relationship between Scandanavian languages and Sanskrit. I don't know how that works except the theory that India was invaded by Indo-Europeans and that they brought with them the origins of Sanskrit.

Sushi

 

[Marg]

I am Irish and a little French. My mother and aunt had red hair, a lot of relatiities had red hair as well on my mother's side..

 

[Sushi]

Listening again, he says that about 50% of his patients improve to the degree that they no longer need treatment, then he says, "30%..." and his response is interrupted by the next question. I really wonder what the 30% is!

Any ideas?

Sushi

 

[snowathlete]

Listening again, he says that about 50% of his patients improve to the degree that they no longer need treatment, then he says, "30%..." and his response is interrupted by the next question. I really wonder what the 30% is!

Any ideas?

Sushi

need ongoing treatment? or drop of his radar?

 

[Kati]

That was a great episode. Very informative. I was glad to hear him speak up about the dangers of Rituxin. That is a scary drug, that I would never consider.

I have exclusively northern European ancestry, but am not sure if any of it is Viking. Are there indicators of that in the 23&Me results? Does anyone know? And if so, where are they?

Rituxan, some consider it dangerous, however risk is to be assessed by each taking whether what they have warrant the drug.
As we are moving along with science discoveries, you can be sure the research will not tell us to take vitamins, but will offer drugs which have side effects and adverse effects.

Risk needs to be assessed with the physician that prescribe the drug as well.

Lastly, worth of mention, would you take a so said "risky drug" from a physician who has previously only prescribed vitamins? (I am not referring to any physician in particular). Risk management has many dimensions.

 

[Dreambirdie]

Rituxan, some consider it dangerous, however risk is to be assessed by each taking whether what they have warrant the drug.
As we are moving along with science discoveries, you can be sure the research will not tell us to take vitamins, but will offer drugs which have side effects and adverse effects.

Risk needs to be assessed with the physician that prescribe the drug as well.

Kati---Some of us can't take medications, because they ARE too risky for us, especially something with side effects that can be as serious as Rituxin. I don't need a physician to tell me these things. I have learned the hard way how harmful ordinary medications can be for me to ingest. And I don't need you to tell me either. I already know how you feel about alternative medicine, so please respect my wish to not discuss this with you any further. Thank you.

 

[Kati]

My point is drs treat how they know.

i doubt that 50% of pts who see De Merleir don't see him because they are healthy, just like Dr Bell said members of his cohort thought they were recovered but they weren't. Lack of money to see him and perhaps the idea that he may not have further tricks in his bag could also be other reasons. i would love to hear patients of his talk here.

And I will say it again.. risk management is between the physician and the patient.

Not every patient with ME is sensitive to drugs. There needs to be some research about this. Probably another elusive subset.

 

[alex3619]

------------------------
Hi Sushi,

My 1st cousin had her DNA done through ancestery.com and she has 70% of her genes from the Netherlands. Our Grandmother was Scandanavian. We have a lot of Celtic Blood, Scottish and Irish blood. Those damn Vikings got around. My daughter has dark red hair. I was told once that if you see a Red Head that it's from the Vikings.

Hi Xandoff, the Romans used to primarily red haired and blonde I think, but with major interbreeding it all but disappeared. Modern Italians typically have dark hair, but there are more than a few blondes I think.

 

[Forbin]

The map below shows the extent of Scandinavian settlement between the 8th and 11th century. In particular, the Vikings created settlements in places such as England, Scotland, Ireland and Iceland, all of which had notable ME outbreaks in the 20th century.

Subsequent British colonization, along with late 19th and early 20th century waves of Scandinavian immigration, could have brought a "Viking gene" to a wide variety of places such as America, Australia and New Zealand.

After 1000 years of dissemination, one might have such a gene without having any knowledge of Scandinavian ancestry. [Note that the Viking "reach" stretched to Spain, Italy and North Africa.]

A "Viking gene" is suspected not only in MS but also in hemochromatosis (a disorder of excessive iron in the blood).

 

[heapsreal]

maybe a cure would be to wear what my avatar is wearing, getting drunk, raping and pillaging, and then go and row a boat or maybe it was all that which caused cfs/me???
I suppose if the UK has a big viking back ground and then think of the Uk empire which spread throught the world even further, then its everywhere. A big british influence in america and australia and there is alot of us on here. I think its too hard to narrow it down??

 

[Sing]

Those Vikings were lusty fellows. What an avatar for this conversation!

 

[PNR2008]

I am Slovak and Polish and my hair is brown with alot of red like a dark auburn but I have relatives on both sides with ME/CFS/FM. We all have very light eyes.

 

[Tristen]

Yes, their are Vikings in my past too, though I have not done 23andme, I know from family history. My mother and grandfather had red hair.

I think that those guys even got to North America--maybe Nova Scotia? And I'm sure everywhere they went they were not shy about spreading their genes around.

Here is another strange one: there is a close linguistic relationship between Scandanavian languages and Sanskrit. I don't know how that works except the theory that India was invaded by Indo-Europeans and that they brought with them the origins of Sanskrit.

Sushi

That is very interesting. New one to me. I'll have to research that hx.

 

[Sing]

I have light gray-blue eyes, fair skin and went from blond to light brown with reddish highlights as I have gotten older. Am tallish and was once strongly built--definitely a northern woman.

 

[SilverbladeTE]

Note that Multiple Sclerosis is very common in higher and lower latittudes, but not equatorial regions.

 

[Sing]

KDM noted that Multiple Sclerosis is most common in Finland. What countries of lower latitudes have a high incidence too?

 

[voner]

Does anyone know if Dr. De Meirleir says "intracellular infection" or "intercellular infection"?

 

[Dreambirdie]

Here is another strange one: there is a close linguistic relationship between Scandanavian languages and Sanskrit. I don't know how that works except the theory that India was invaded by Indo-Europeans and that they brought with them the origins of Sanskrit.

Sushi

Sushi--That's not exactly true. The relationship between these languages is close, but not that close. What is true is that Sanskrit and the Scandinavian languages are both in the Indo-European language family, but if you look at this INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE CHART, you can see how many languages sprang out of the original Indo-European language, and branched from it. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/IndoEuropeanTree.svg

The closer a language is to the main branch (springing from the center line in the diagram), the closer it is to the original Indo-European language. There are so many offshoots, and in fact all modern European languages come from that original Indo-European root language.

Where the Indo-Europeans riginated has been speculated and debated for ages. Marija Gimbutas (one of the world's foremost scholars on archeology and linguistics) came up with the Kurgan hypothesis "which combined archaeological study of the distinctive “Kurgan” burial mounds with linguistics to unravel some problems in the study of the Proto-Indo-Europeans; namely, to account for their origin and to trace their migrations into Europe. (The word “Kurgan” is a Russian loan-word from Turkic describing the kind of graves and grave-barrows built by the people of this culture.)

“Indo-European” is a linguistic term that refers to a family of languages found from India to the western edge of Europe. And Proto-Indo-European language refers to the now extinct mother tongue from which all Indo-European languages developed. Gimbutas’ hypothesis locates the homeland of Proto-Indo-European speakers in the area of south Russia and documents their movements into Europe from the end of the fifth millennium BC. Gimbutas describes the influx of nomadic pastoralists over a 2000 year period as a “collision of cultures” in which androcratic cultural and ideological patterns were introduced into Europe. This led to a hybridization between the Old European and Indo-European systems."
http://www.vaidilute.com/books/gimbutas/gimbutas-info.html

"The Kurgan hypothesis (also theory or model) is one of the proposals about early Indo-European origins, which postulates that the people of an archaeological "Kurgan culture" (a term grouping the Yamna, or Pit Grave, culture and its predecessors) in the Pontic steppe were the most likely speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language. The term is derived from kurgan (курган), a Turkic loanword in Russian for a tumulus or burial mound. The Kurgan model is the most widely accepted scenario of Indo-European origins.[1][2]
The Kurgan hypothesis was first formulated in the 1950s by Marija Gimbutas, who defined the "Kurgan culture" as composed of four successive periods, with the earliest (Kurgan I) including the Samara and Seroglazovo cultures of the Dnieper/Volga region in the Copper Age (early 4th millennium BC). The bearers of these cultures were nomadic pastoralists, who, according to the model, by the early 3rd millennium BC expanded throughout the Pontic-Caspian steppe and into Eastern Europe.[3]"

And here's a map of how they spread from central Asia in all directions.

 

[Daffodil]

i am a proponent of the hygiene theory. maybe we didnt get all the infections we should have gotten as babies cuz we were too clean.

i am descended from the Rajputs..elite warriors...even more deadly than the Vikings!

hehe

 

[MeSci]

KDM noted that Multiple Sclerosis is most common in Finland. What countries of lower latitudes have a high incidence too?

There is some info here:

http://www.direct-ms.org/british.html