• 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.

Immune boosters

Dr. Yes

Shame on You
Messages
868
Maxine -

Nowadays they measure NK cytotoxicity by mixing them with living cancer cells and letting 'em do their worst, then using flowcytometry to find the percentage of dead cancer cells that result.
 

Hysterical Woman

Senior Member
Messages
857
Location
East Coast
Maxine -

Nowadays they measure NK cytotoxicity by mixing them with living cancer cells and letting 'em do their worst, then using flowcytometry to find the percentage of dead cancer cells that result.

Hi Dr. Yes,

Thanks so much for your answer. But does that mean that the NK cells are only tested against cancer cells, but not viruses or retroviruses?

Sounds like a very interesting test, but probably very expensive?

Thanks again,

HW
 

Sushi

Moderation Resource Albuquerque
Messages
19,935
Location
Albuquerque
For me this is the definitive article on the web about Th1/Th2 immune inbalances and how to shift the balance towards Th1 by natural means by doing the things that boost Th1 and cutting down as much as possible on those that increase Th2.

http://www.diagnose-me.com/cond/C104791.html

Hey Liverock,

I agree, that is a very helpful article--with simple things you can actually do! :victory:

I was also glad to see they mentioned low dose naltrexone as a Th1 booster. I have been taking it for some months now and the noticeable effects have been good.

Sushi
 

cfs since 1998

Senior Member
Messages
604
I'm going to go on AHCC and beta glucan soon. The best brands of beta glucan are Transfer Point and NOW, in that order. The NOW costs about half as much so I'll start with that.

I like the idea of the low dose naltrexone. I tried it at only 2mg for two weeks but it interfered with my sleep too much. I've taken AHCC in the past for about a month and had no side effects.

Isoprinosine confuses me: the dosage, the administration schedule, etc. A few people on various forums reported good luck taking it continuously, but most sources say it should be "pulsed." If you do decide to pulse it there are a number of different schedules out there and I have no idea which one should be used. For example this study used two different pulsing schedules, one of them actually caused an immune depression.

Of course there is also immuneextra, epicor, moducare, del-immune, proboost, avemar, nexavir, whey protein, NAC, earth dragon peptides, probiotics, astralagus, echinacea ... there are so many it makes my head spin. Picking one is impossible.

Andrew, also take a look at the thread I recently posted about immune modulators by Dr. Rosenbaum, if you haven't already.
 

Andrew

Senior Member
Messages
2,513
Location
Los Angeles, USA
Andrew, also take a look at the thread I recently posted about immune modulators by Dr. Rosenbaum, if you haven't already.
Thanks. This is very helpful. But I'm also interested in finding people who have seen a significant change in their NK cell tests after weeks of taking an immune booster.
 

Athene

ihateticks.me
Messages
1,143
Location
Italy
I've been taking Echinacea root for about 3 weeks and I'm getting my NK cells measured next week. They were very low before so it will be interesting to see if there has been a change.
I have tried different types of echinacea before, using different plants (I think there are 3 types) and different parts (root, stem). Some had little effect but one type has got me out of very severe relapses twice, though I never had my NK cells measured then.
I will report back.

Liverdock, thank you for that link.
 

cfs since 1998

Senior Member
Messages
604
Thanks. This is very helpful. But I'm also interested in finding people who have seen a significant change in their NK cell tests after weeks of taking an immune booster.

Sorry, I meant to answer that and then I started rambling and forgot. AHCC and echinacea both raised NK cells/activity about the same amount in a few studies. There is a user here, kolowesi (Kelly) but she hasn't been around lately. If she had seen your post I'm sure she would have responded. She previously has said AHCC made her NK cells go from 7 to 70. Here is her post: http://forums.aboutmecfs.org/showthread.php?473-immune-stimulants&p=5270&viewfull=1#post5270. I think Dr. Mikovits might have been talking about AHCC when she said 'supplements that boost NK cells that have been through Phase 1 safety trials', which it has.
 

julius

Watchoo lookin' at?
Messages
785
Location
Canada
I have had very good response with Nabilone. It is the only treatment that has shown consistent and marked improvement for me. Unfortunately, it's expensive and I can't afford it anymore. The interesting thing is that it lowers NK cell count. This is a study not on Nabilone, but it's natural analog, THC http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a916071652

The natural version of this is equally beneficial, but when taken orally.

I haven't personally had any measurements of my NK function, but I thought this was worth bringing up.


CFS since
Keep me posted on the AHCC, I want to try it but it's too expensive for me too.

BTW, AHCC has a high concentration of beta glucans. are you sure you need to add extra?
 

Dr. Yes

Shame on You
Messages
868
Thank you sarahg, master Thread-Merger! :D

And I was wondering about the Myco-forte....Did you notice any change (good or bad) in your mold or other allergies while you were on it? Or anything you might consider an autoimmune effect, or other side effect?
 
Messages
84
the real thing

in the depressed immunity situation of long term chronic infections they use levamisole and interferons in mainstream medicine .. interferons r expensive but levamisole is one of the cheapest meds i know of ..



Immunotherapy in chronic brucellosis. Effect of levamisole and interferon; mechanisms of action and clinical value.
Printzis S, Raptopoulou-Gigi M, Orphanou-Koumerkeridou H, Lagre F, Goulis G.

2nd Medical Department, Aristotelian University, Thessaloniki, Greece.

Thirty two anergic patients with chronic brucellosis treated with a) interferon-alpha 2b(group 1), b) levamisole (group 2) and c) conventional therapy(group 3) were studied. The effect of treatment on T lymphocyte blast formation in the presence of PHA, specific cell mediated immunity against brucella antigens, titers of brucella antibodies and clinical symptoms were evaluated .T lymphocyte blast formation was shown to range in normal levels in all patients before treatment compared to 10 normal controls suggesting against a generalized impairment of cell mediated immunity. Titers of brucella antibodies were significantly decreased in group 1, almost significantly in group 2 and were significantly increased in group 3 at the end of treatment. A significant improvement of symptoms as well as production of leukocyte migration inhibition against brucella antigens were noted in both groups 1 and 2, in contrast to group 3. This response to treatment was however greater in group 1. These findings demonstrate that immunotherapy resulted in both clinical and immunological improvement and that interferon seems to be a more promising therapeutic approach of chronic brucellosis.

and a second one here


The effect of levamisole combined with the classical treatment in chronic brucellosis.
Irmak H, Buzgan T, Karahocagil MK, Evirgen O, Akdeniz H, Demirz AP.

Department of Infectious Diseases, Yznc Yil University Faculty of Medicine, Van, Turkey. hasanirmaktr@yahoo.com

Levamisole is an immunopotenciator drug which is used as an antihelmintic drug as well as very effective remedy on cellular immunity compared with humoral immunity. A total 71 patients (37 men, 34 women) who referred to our department between March 1997 and December 2001, with a history of the disease for about 1 year, were diagnosed as having chronic brucellosis through those tests brucella serum agglutination test (SAT), SAT with Coombs and SAT with 2-mercaptoethanol. The patients were randomly divided into levamisole group (36 patients) and control group (35 patients). All patients were given rifampicin 600 mg/day + doxycycline 200 mg/day for 6 weeks as a standard classical combined therapy for brucellosis. In the levamisole group, oral levamisole 80 mg every other day for 6 weeks was added to the treatment. There was a statistically significant difference between two groups, in complaints of arthralgia, fatigue and sweats before and 6 months after treatment, as well as in erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein elevations and lymphomonocytosis finding. While it was provided both clinical and serological improvement in all patients in the levamisole group; 11 patients in the control group did not improve both clinically and in view of specific and nonspecific laboratory findings and a recurrence occurred in one case, in this group. In conclusion, levamisole added to classical antibiotic therapy in treatment of chronic brucellosis was found quite efficient in all patients in providing adequate clinical and laboratory response in comparison to classical antibiotic therapy alone.

PMID: 14690014 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

i think there was a study that they found cimetidine also very effective for cell mediated immunity .. these r proven therapies and doctors have to prescribe these for pwc i think ..