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Vagus Nerve & Inflammation--Radio program

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
Just posting the blurb from the radio program here, in case helpful:
Frontiers (BBC Radio) said:
Many people are living with chronic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel conditions in which the body attacks itself. Although drug treatments have improved over recent years they do not work for everyone and can have serious side effects.

Now researchers such as neurologist Dr Kevin Tracey of the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, and rheumatologist Professor Paul-Peter Tak of Amsterdam University, are trying a new approach to improving the lives of these patients. They are firing electrical pulses along the vagus nerve, a major nerve that connects the brain with all the organs. The technology to do this has been for some decades as stimulating the vagus nerve has been used to help people who have epilepsy that isn't controlled with drugs since the 1990s.
Gaia Vince talks to these pioneers of this new field of research. And she hears how there may be ways of improving the tone of the vagal nerve using meditation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04pv6kq
 

OverTheHills

Senior Member
Messages
465
Location
New Zealand
This programme is very interesting - stimulation of the vagal nerve is thought to reduce TNF production and may be applicable to a whole range of diseases involving inflammation - autoimmune (inc RA), migraine and even tinnitus (as well as well-established use in refractory epilepsy). There are early human trials going on with pacemaker type devices and also some types of meditation/social interventions may increase vagal nerve activity.

It sounds good - I wonder what @Jonathan Edwards view is. Is it all hype and speculation?
OTH
 

melamine

Senior Member
Messages
341
Location
Upstate NY
I felt better than I had felt in years for not much more than two days following an EMG, part of which sends big shocks of electrical current through the soles of the feet. Wish I could have gotten lots more.
 

Jonathan Edwards

"Gibberish"
Messages
5,256
This programme is very interesting - stimulation of the vagal nerve is thought to reduce TNF production and may be applicable to a whole range of diseases involving inflammation - autoimmune (inc RA), migraine and even tinnitus (as well as well-established use in refractory epilepsy). There are early human trials going on with pacemaker type devices and also some types of meditation/social interventions may increase vagal nerve activity.

It sounds good - I wonder what @Jonathan Edwards view is. Is it all hype and speculation?
OTH

Sounds a bit weird to me. I doubt it would do that much to TNF in joints (not supplied by the vagus) and I think the electric shocks might get a bit annoying.
 

SDSue

Southeast
Messages
1,066
Somewhere recently, (if my brain worked, I could tell you where!) Dr. Ben Lynch did a blurb on Vagal nerve stimulation. He claims you can do it yourself by either gargling aggressively (until your eyes water) or activating your gag reflex repeatedly (as if I'm not already a social pariah because of ME/CFS lol).

Makes you wonder if the old wives tales of gargling for a cold virus was actually helpful because of it's effect on the Vagus nerve?
 

halcyon

Senior Member
Messages
2,482
Sounds a bit weird to me. I doubt it would do that much to TNF in joints (not supplied by the vagus)

From a paper by Dr. Tracy:
Our studies have revealed that vagus nerve stimulation leads to the release of significant quantities of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine in the spleen. We identified an acetylcholine-producing, memory phenotype T-cell population in mice that is integral to the inflammatory reflex.5 These T-cells are required for the inhibition of cytokine production by vagus nerve stimulation. Thus, action potentials originating in the vagus nerve regulate specialized T-cells, which in turn produce the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, required to control TNF production and other innate immune responses. Moreover, white blood cells are constantly passing through the spleen, and upon exiting it, these inflammatory cells have a role in the onset and progression of arthritis and other forms of tissue injury in areas that the vagus nerve does not reach. The net effect of this arrangement is that vagus nerve signals can significantly limit the ability of these cells to cause damage when they travel to distant tissues, like the joints in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
 

Sherlock

Boswellia for lungs and MC stabllizing
Messages
1,287
Location
k8518704 USA
Roughly at 15 minutes, a patient with an electro-stimulator says that his throat tightens up when the stim is on. Maybe low vagal tone accounts for the odd kind of apnea that CFSers get, including me. Sometimes, I wake up with a loud breathing-in snort, but never with tachycardia. I have never been overweight.

If I press on the abdominal midline, I can feel that area does not seem right - as if it needs fingertip massage.
 

Never Give Up

Collecting improvements, until there's a cure.
Messages
971

Fogbuster

Senior Member
Messages
269
Really, really interesting video and thread. Thanks!

It all makes sense with regards to yogi and some meditative practices involving humming and making certain sounds with the vocal chords, to improve Vagal tone it seems. Perhaps all these practices will become much less alien in our western cultures in the next 10-20 years or so.

I have used a PEMF device on my brain stem and stomach for 3 mins on each part. I feel more resistant to stress, more mentally stable if you will. It has anti anxiety and anti depressant effect. And I just feel like my cognition, being processing ability and word recall has improved in my foggy state.

Would recommend.
 

Violeta

Senior Member
Messages
2,873
I wish they would spend some time and money on figuring out why signals along the vagus nerve aren't working as they should and a way to fix that problem.
 

Seanko

Senior Member
Messages
119
Location
Swindon, UK
I wish they would spend some time and money on figuring out why signals along the vagus nerve aren't working as they should and a way to fix that problem.

Vagus nerve stimulation has been used in treating epilepsy for a number of years & more recently with Rheumatoid Arthritis (described above). So it seems to being trialed with other auto-immune diseases.

It's interesting that Rituximab is also a treatment for Rheumatoid Arthritis... I'll shut up leave informed commentary on that to @Jonathan Edwards :)
 

Jonathan Edwards

"Gibberish"
Messages
5,256
Vagus nerve stimulation has been used in treating epilepsy for a number of years & more recently with Rheumatoid Arthritis (described above). So it seems to being trialed with other auto-immune diseases.

It's interesting that Rituximab is also a treatment for Rheumatoid Arthritis... I'll shut up leave informed commentary on that to @Jonathan Edwards :)

Vagus nerve stimulation might be as good as nurofen - if anyone tried it. I cannot see a trial on pubmed yet. Most of the papers are on rats - with the wrong type of arthritis. Not impressed so far.