Hello,
I've got a question that I would love to get some advice on from those who have travelled this road before. I just had an initial phone consult with Dr. Enlander for my 21-year old daughter, who has CFS, FM, POTs, IBS, Adrenal Fatigue and GI issues. The overall call was good, and Dr. Enlander explained the theory that many CFS patients have immune system dysregulation. Specifically, he explained that the immune system is more likely upregulated rather than being weakened, but he did note that CFS patients are a heterogeneous group. Since he believes that the immune system needs to be restored to normal functioning, he recommended Hepapressin (an immune system adjuvant) be given as a first line supplement. He also notes clinical success in starting some patients with Hepapressin first, and then moving on to other therapies like GcMAF/MAF 878, if the patients do not respond to just the Hepapressin.
Dr. Enlander also noted that he worked closely with Rich Van Konynenburg for 12 years until his untimely passing. Dr. Enlander mentioned that in his clinical experience, simply giving a B12 and B6 combo, two extra ingredients in his Hepapressin formulation, will not be enough to improve the immune system, and I suppose, bring methylation back to normal. Interestingly enough, my daughter did have a Methylation Pathways Panel from Health Diagostics Lab in South Amboy, NJ. The medical director of that lab, as well as Dr. Enlander, confirmed that my daughter has folate cycle deficiencies as well as low, reduced glutathione. Thus, this is a direct confirmation that my daughter's methylation cycle is not functioning the way it ought to.
So, here's my question which ties in both the Hepapressin from Dr. Enlander and the Simplified Methylation Protocol (SMP), which Rich proposed. If immune system dysfunction is "at fault", then I would think that simply giving supplements that improve methylation would not help that much. Yet, in Rich's study with Dr. Neil Nathan, they showed that by giving certain forms of folate, B12, lecithin and other supplements, most of thier patients improved. And those that needed further improvement were helped by adding supplements that took into account different people's genetic SNPs. In addition to feeling better, their glutathione levels also increased, despite the fact that these patients were not taking glutathione. To my knowledge, since none of the supplements were directly targeting the immune system, that would imply (at least to me) that a partial methylation block was preventing these folks from getting better. What I did not get a chance to ask Dr. Enlander is how these results can be explained if one believes that the immune system is the system that really needs to be normalized.
I suppose both theories can be true in that for many patients in the RVK study, fixing the methylation cycle allowed the body to make normal levels of reduced glutathione. And, as the body's main antioxidant, this allowed the immune system to get back to normal. But, if this were so, what I also don't know is why one wouldn't start out with the SMP protocol rather than going to injections first. It could be that the SMP helps patients further along, but you need an immune system adjuvant to really get the body back to normal function. So, it could that Dr. Enlander is really trying to be more aggressive than the SMP to potentially get a wider group of CFS well "on the first shot". I really don't know.
If anyone has any thoughts that they can share, I would really appreciate it.
Regards,
Scotty81
I've got a question that I would love to get some advice on from those who have travelled this road before. I just had an initial phone consult with Dr. Enlander for my 21-year old daughter, who has CFS, FM, POTs, IBS, Adrenal Fatigue and GI issues. The overall call was good, and Dr. Enlander explained the theory that many CFS patients have immune system dysregulation. Specifically, he explained that the immune system is more likely upregulated rather than being weakened, but he did note that CFS patients are a heterogeneous group. Since he believes that the immune system needs to be restored to normal functioning, he recommended Hepapressin (an immune system adjuvant) be given as a first line supplement. He also notes clinical success in starting some patients with Hepapressin first, and then moving on to other therapies like GcMAF/MAF 878, if the patients do not respond to just the Hepapressin.
Dr. Enlander also noted that he worked closely with Rich Van Konynenburg for 12 years until his untimely passing. Dr. Enlander mentioned that in his clinical experience, simply giving a B12 and B6 combo, two extra ingredients in his Hepapressin formulation, will not be enough to improve the immune system, and I suppose, bring methylation back to normal. Interestingly enough, my daughter did have a Methylation Pathways Panel from Health Diagostics Lab in South Amboy, NJ. The medical director of that lab, as well as Dr. Enlander, confirmed that my daughter has folate cycle deficiencies as well as low, reduced glutathione. Thus, this is a direct confirmation that my daughter's methylation cycle is not functioning the way it ought to.
So, here's my question which ties in both the Hepapressin from Dr. Enlander and the Simplified Methylation Protocol (SMP), which Rich proposed. If immune system dysfunction is "at fault", then I would think that simply giving supplements that improve methylation would not help that much. Yet, in Rich's study with Dr. Neil Nathan, they showed that by giving certain forms of folate, B12, lecithin and other supplements, most of thier patients improved. And those that needed further improvement were helped by adding supplements that took into account different people's genetic SNPs. In addition to feeling better, their glutathione levels also increased, despite the fact that these patients were not taking glutathione. To my knowledge, since none of the supplements were directly targeting the immune system, that would imply (at least to me) that a partial methylation block was preventing these folks from getting better. What I did not get a chance to ask Dr. Enlander is how these results can be explained if one believes that the immune system is the system that really needs to be normalized.
I suppose both theories can be true in that for many patients in the RVK study, fixing the methylation cycle allowed the body to make normal levels of reduced glutathione. And, as the body's main antioxidant, this allowed the immune system to get back to normal. But, if this were so, what I also don't know is why one wouldn't start out with the SMP protocol rather than going to injections first. It could be that the SMP helps patients further along, but you need an immune system adjuvant to really get the body back to normal function. So, it could that Dr. Enlander is really trying to be more aggressive than the SMP to potentially get a wider group of CFS well "on the first shot". I really don't know.
If anyone has any thoughts that they can share, I would really appreciate it.
Regards,
Scotty81
