WPI Finds High Levels of Retrovirus in ME/CFS Patients

I was thinking this too. I'd like to have a read of the full paper to see if they checked the control cohort for antibodies.

Has anyone managed to get hold of the full paper?

garcia.

I posted the full paper on page 9 of this thread, but the 98% quote comes from other (as of yet) unpublished research.

I dont want to be a party pooper, but I'm reserving judgement on XMRV as THE CAUSE OF CFS.

It could well be a virus which we catch due to a common immune problem with PWC's, namely the unbalance between TH1 and TH2 parts of the immune system.

We tend to have a strong TH2 section of the immune system which fights auto immune problems and a very weak TH1 immune defence, the side of the immune system that fights off viruses by Natural Killer cells. AIDS victims have a similar inbalance of their immune system.

This inbalance means when we are confronted by a virus such as XMRV the TH1 is unable to provide an adequate defence against it.

When this happens RNaseL is brought into action to perform a " holding operation" by stopping replication of the virus but not being able to wipe it out like a fully functioning balanced immune system.

Eventually the RNaseL runs out and we are at the mercy of the virus.

This could explain why we are getting the various levels of antibodies of XMRV reported.

PWC's are at varying levels of Th1 function,some are taking supplements that correct the immune inbalance, others are at varying levels of this "RNaseL fight" which is taking place, and some have a genetic RNaseL defect which means they cannot put up a fight against the virus replicating.

Paul Cheney summed up the TH1/TH2 immune inbalance problem many years ago.
(This is an edited version of the article-you know how Dr Cheney goes on and on......)

http://stanford.wellsphere.com/auti...eney-balance-the-immune-system-th1-th2/742936

This is a more concise article on the TH1/Th2 balance of the immune system with some cheaper supplements than Dr Cheney proposes, to help correct the inbalance and start the fight against XMRV, whether it proves to be just another virus or the answer to CFS.

Personally, I hope XMRV turns out to be the basis of CFS and we can all get cured and go back to living normally again. Wouldn't that be great.

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

Professor of psychiatry is quoted as saying this in the UK's Independent newpaper:

"It's spectacular but needs replication. And I hope that no one is thinking of prescribing anti-retrovirals on the basis of this," said Simon Wessely, professor of psychological medicine at King's College London. "It's very preliminary and there no evidence to say this is relevant to the vast majority of people in the UK with the condition."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/has-science-found-the-cause-of-me-1799944.html

XAND - CFS has a new name

After 50 years of debates about what to call this entity, WPI has coined it XAND (X associated neuro-immune disease). Not to be missed is the fact that they have already implemented the new name into one of their press releases yesterday.

"Those with XAND (ME/CFS) and/or fibromyalgia, interested in participating in research studies to further the development of diagnostic tests, should complete the questionnaire available at
www.wpinstitute.org." [Note that the questionnaire is not to be found (yet) on their website.]



What does everyone think about the name XAND? Do we say "zand" or X-and?

Funny, because that's exactly what the researchers at WPI are thinking: "Mikovits and her colleagues are investigating already-approved antiretroviral drugs to see if these will benefit people who have chronic fatigue."

A Few More Thoughts

Caledonia pointed out that we'll be curious to see the antibody rate in healthy controls. I'm sure it will be higher than 4% but I'm also pretty certain it won't be all that high. Nothing like 98%.

And all viruses are handled differently by different hosts. One percent of Caucasians for instance are immune to HIV because they lack the receptor that it uses to dock on and invade cells when it first enters the body. That receptor is somewhat redundant (other receptors in the body can serve its purpose) so the person is both immune and healthy.

So there will be people who handle this virus--or seem to--we don't know how increased their risk of various cancers are.

I know the researchers are saying this is not a laboratory escape. Maybe not. And maybe it's not necessary at this point for the scientists to ask. They're doing good science.

Nonetheless I wonder why we had, all around the same time period in our history, epidemics of HIV, disabling forms of lyme disease, and CFIDS (XMRV). As I said I'd really like to see if ticks have XMRV and am going to personally make some requests (not that I have any sway but I'm just going to make a case for it).

Although HIV gained early notoriety and tons of scientific funding, Lyme disease and CFIDS (if the same or different) were treated exactly the same by the CDC. They were poo poohed as either psychological or minor. Good evidence from other scientists was methodically marginalized and destroyed. Is it really just incompetence enshrined? I'm not a conspiracy theorist but it takes me just a few tiny baby steps to say that the military-industrial complex was working on this stuff and it was either tested or escaped.

Full text of: A New Virus for Old Diseases?

John M. Coffin1 and Jonathan P. Stoye2

1Department of Molecular Microbiology, Tufts University, Boston, MA 02111, USA. E-mail: john.coffin@tufts.edu 2National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, London NW7 1AA, UK.

A retrovirus associated with cancer is linked to chronic fatigue syndrome.

There is little consensus in the medical community on whether chronic fatigue syndrome is a distinct disease. As its name implies, the condition is characterized by debilitating fatigue persisting for many years, and it affects as much as 1% of the worlds population. Although chronic inflammation is often found in these patients, no infectious or toxic agent has been clearly implicated in this disease, which is diagnosed largely by excluding other conditions that cause similar symptoms (1). In this weeks Science Express, Lombardi et al. (2) describe the detection of xenotropic murine leukemia virusrelated virus (XMRV) in about two thirds of patients diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. Both laboratory and epidemiological studies are now needed to determine whether this virus has a causative role, not only in this disease, but perhaps in others as well.

Chronic fatigue syndrome is not the first human disease to which XMRV has been linked. The virus first was described about 3 years ago in a few prostate cancer patients (3), and recently detected in nearly a quarter of all prostate cancer biopsies (4). It has been isolated from both prostate cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome patients, and is similar to a group of endogenous murine leukemia viruses (MLVs) found in the genomes of inbred and related wild mice. Although a half century of studies on MLVs and other gammaretroviruses have led to important discoveries on which much of our current understanding of cancer rests, there has been no clear evidence demonstrating human infection with gammaretroviruses, or associating these agents with any human disease.

Endogenous viruses, such as xenotropic MLV, arise when retroviruses infect germline cells. The integrated viral DNA, or provirus, is passed on to offspring as part of the host genome (see the figure). Endogenous proviruses form a large part of the genetic complement of modern mammalsabout 8% of the human genome, for example. Xenotropic proviruses first entered the mouse germ line about a million years ago, but cannot infect cells of the mice that carry them because of a mutation in the cellular receptor for the virus presumed to have arisen after viral entry into the germ line. The propensity of xenotropic MLVs to infect rapidly dividing human cells has made it a common contaminant in cultured cells, particularly in certain human tumor cell lines (5).

There is more than 90% DNA sequence identity between XMRV and xenotropic MLV, and their biological properties are virtually indistinguishable (69), leaving little doubt that the former is derived from the latter by one or more crossspecies transmission events. There are several lines of evidence that transmission happened in the outside world and was not a laboratory contaminant. One is that XMRVs from disparate locations and from both chronic fatigue syndrome and prostate cancer patients are nearly identical: The viral genomes differ by only a few nucleotides, whereas there are hundreds of sequence differences between XMRVs and xenotropic murine leukemia proviruses of laboratory mice. Other evidence includes the presence of XMRV and high amounts of antibodies to XMRV and other MLVs in chronic fatigue syndrome and prostate cancer patients.

There is still much that we do not understand. Whether the virus plays a causative role in either chronic fatigue syndrome or prostate cancer is unknown. For example, XMRV infection might, coincidentally, be more frequent in the same geographical region as a cluster of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. And individuals with either disease might be more readily infected due to immune activation. XMRV might prefer to grow in rapidly dividing prostate cancer cells (10), and the presence of rapidly dividing cells in either condition might make infection more readily detectable. We do not know how the virus is transmitted, and the suggestion, based on indirect evidence, that there is sexual transmission (8) is premature. Given that infectious virus is present in plasma and in blood cells, blood-borne transmission is a possibility. Furthermore, we do not know the prevalence or distribution of this virus in either human or animal populations, and animal models for infection and pathogenesis are badly needed.

Two characteristics of XMRV are particularly noteworthy. One is the near genetic identity of isolates from different diseases and from individuals in different parts of the United States. The two most distantly related genomes sequenced to date differ by fewer than 30 out of about 8000 nucleotides. Thus, all of the XMRV isolates are more similar to each other than are the genomes isolated from any one individual infected with the human immunodeficiency virus. In this respect, XMRV more closely resembles human T cell lymphotropic viruses (HTLVs) isolated from the same geographic region (11). As in the case with HTLV, the lack of diversity implies that XMRV recently descended from a common ancestor, and that the number of replication cycles within one infected individual is limited.

Another notable feature of XMRV is that the frequency of infection in nondiseased controls is remarkably highabout 4% in both normal individuals from the same geographic region as infected patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, and in nonmalignant prostates. If these figures are borne out in larger studies, it would mean that perhaps 10 million people in the United Sates and hundreds of millions worldwide are infected with a virus whose pathogenic potential for humans is still unknown. However, it is clear that closely related viruses cause a variety of major diseases, including cancer, in many other mammals. Further study may reveal XMRV as a cause of more than one well-known old disease, with potentially important implications for diagnosis, prevention, and therapy.

Thank you Kim.

One thing you can be sure of, terms used in the report like MILLIONS COULD HAVE THE XMRV VIRUS and COULD POSSIBLY BE SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED, will be like a red flag to both governments and big pharma. When it was just prostate cancer victims who were suffering with XMRV it wasnt worth bothering.

Now there are millions of votes to be lost by politicians if these statements turn out to be true and they dont do anything about it, and there will be
millions of $$$$$$$$$$ to be made by the vaccine/drug companies.

Watch out for a vaccine that will never undergo clinical trials being developed and rushed onto the market that will eventually kill more people than it cures, along with conditions like "you cant sue us if it all goes wrong" aka the swine flu vaccine. Yes I know, I'm a cynic(I prefer the term realist).

low dose naltrexone & HIV

Here is another interesting connection that hit me as soon as I woke up this morning. Low dose naltrexone (which I am taking) has been shown in studies in Africa to stop the HIV virus from turning into AIDS. It has also stopped the progression of immune damage in patients who already have AIDS.

http://www.ldnafricaaids.org/?page_id=4

"The safety as well as potential efficacy of LDN in preventing AIDS was discovered by Bernard Bihari, M.D., a Harvard-trained New York physician, in 1985. Since that time Dr. Bihari has treated more than 350 patients, 94% of whom have remained HIV positive without progression into AIDS for up to 18 or more years so far. Many of these individuals received only LDN and some used LDN as an auxiliary to the evolving HAART drugs....

" Dr. Bihari, Dr. Abdel Kader Traore` (and other health officials at the University Hospital in Bamako in Bamako, Mali), and more recently Dr. Jaquelyn McCandless, have created a protocol for a controlled, non-placebo study involving 250 adult volunteers, all of whom are HIV positive but have not yet developed any AIDS symptoms. The protocol will test efficacy of LDN alone compared to the current HAART medications as well as the combination of the two. The Malian government is fully supportive of this study and will provide the HAART medications needed."

Dr. Jaquelyn McCandless has used LDN extensively to treat autistic children --with good results. She has a Yahoo Groups forum on autism and LDN.

One of its mechanisms in the immune system (it has many) is to shift the balance from Th2 dominance to Th1 dominance.

I have felt much better on this medication and while I don't know which of its many effects is helping, this possibility is quite interesting. Perhaps if it is effective against HIV it could possibly be effective against XMRV?

It is also interesting to me that my ex-husband has prostate cancer...hmmm.

This is another one to watch.

Sushi

Does anyone know where to get a TH1/Th2 test. I mentioned this to my doctor, he is open to this, but he says he doesn't know of a test for this imbalance.

more questions

It's hard for me to believe CFS could be sexually transmittable.

In the 32 years that I've had CFS, no one I've been in a sexual relationship with has had it--either prior to or after our involvement. The man I was living with when I first became ill did not have it then, and doesn't currently have it. And the man I've been with for the past ten years doesn't have it--he didn't get it from me.

I never had a transfusion in my life, so I couldn't have gotten it from blood.

And what about the people who recovered from CFS by addressing non-viral issues, like heavy metals, and environmental toxin overloads... ?

There is more that needs to be known about this. STill I'm really glad they are making some progress. And I sure look forward to the test--available in 6 months!

I'm somewhat skeptical of their speculation about sexual transmission as well. None of my partners have ever shown any evidence of either a) having it before I got involved with them and b) getting it after my involvement with them.

However, if you assume it is sexually transmitted - if you look at sexual transmission rates of HIV, they are actually quite low, depending on the phase of the illness - from 1/100 chance to over 1/10,000 chance of transmission via heterosexual intercourse - among unprotected partners. So I guess its possible to have it any never infect anyone/be infected? Who even knows if it behaves like HIV as far as transmission or not. People just assume because its a retrovirus that it must be like HIV, but it could well be nothing at all like it.

Also, my family doesn't have a history of prostate cancer. In fact I don't think anyone in my family or extended family has ever been diagnosed with prostate cancer of any kind.

I did have a blood transfusion when I had an operation before getting ill. But then upon checking up on the donors, all are completely healthy. Including not having a been treated for cancer.

If you have to have a "genetic" predisposition to be made ill by this, then why do none of the people in my family have it, surely I share the same genes as them?

Also on genetic predisposition - did all the people in incline/Royal Free/Iceland/NY/wherever that they had samples from in this studay and who got ill in an "outbreak" all happen to have the same genetic predisposition? All the people in the symphony? All the people in the high school? Seems unlikely? Conversely, if its as communicable as the "outbreaks" might have you think, why do people with isolated cases seem to rarely if ever transmit it/cause illness in others around them?

What about this "stressor" that precipitates the illness in many of the sporadic cases? I never beleived that "stress" caused CFS, but its a comon element in the history of many sporadic cases in the months prior. Does extreme stress/other illness/etc.. need to be present to trigger active infection of this agent, if you have already been exposed?

What about people's report of "mono" and then never getting better? Did the mono trigger the illness, or did the underlying infection trigger the mono? What about people who have "CFS" but don't show reactivated herpes viral infections (EBV/HHV6/CMV) - yes there are some...?

Lots of questions...

very good question.

I think we need to know a lot more about the patient population that was tested. It doesn't seem to fit a lot of different 'types', and now if it's found that these other cohorts don't have XMRV, then will they be told they don't really have CFS/ME or don't have "real" CFS/ME per this definition or that?

Thanks Caledonia,

d.

p.s. Pardon my brain fog, but I thought in earlier articles it said that XMRV was the slow growing one...I'm confused. If XMRV comes on quickly, then it might apply to 'sudden-onset', but perhaps not gradual onset cases?

Re: Ampligen

I actually don't think in the long run it will help Ampligen get approved, as it was never approved for HIV, and has had a rocky history (to say the least) getting approved for anything else as well.

Unless for some odd reason they fast-tracked the drug, this will mean another 2-3 years of studies, and then another 2 years waiting for it to get approved.

just my two pennies,

d.

Sorry Andrew I dont know either, I suspect that outside a research lab there isnt one, but Dr Cheney mentioned in his link that there is an assay test for NK cells (at $350).

Personally, I think the best thing to do is get tested for the XMRV(no doubt a test will be widely available in the future), and take some of the supplements recommended in the diagnose-me.com link to raise Th1 levels and then after a few months have another test to see if this is effective against the virus.
http://www.diagnose-me.com/cond/C104791.html

LDN is in the above list that improves Th1 so thats why it probably helps with AIDS.

I would be very surprised if healthy controls had not already been tested for antibodies. This would be a blunder of epic proportions. It also would have been caught by others before publication if, as Hilary Johnson writes in her blog, the paper was held since May for verification.

Re: the possibility of sexual transmission. I have long suspected this could have been the case for me as a partner, who had neurological issues at the time I was with him, died of cancer (I believe prostate) at 58. And yet, none with whom I have had relationships since becoming ill have a chronic illness. However, this is not dissimilar to HIV transmission. Women are much more vulnerable to infection with HIV due to the mechanics, so to speak.

I don't know how relevant this is but my father had prostate cancer.

As to any links to stress. Life is stressful. All illnesses and all immune function is affected by stress. And, stress is a normal part of life. I'm quite confident that very convincing connections between stressful life events and anything at all could be made by someone studying statistics 101.

We don't know exactly how XMRV fits into the picture right now. We do know, unless the scientists involved and those publishing the findings had a collective brain fart, that we are infected at rates that are startling and cannot but be significant.

I'm so blown away by all of this.

Koan

ETA The fact that XMRV is thought to be transmissible in saliva could account for the orchestra and the basket ball team. HIV is not transmissible through saliva.

The latest on Ampligen...

This was just published 30 minutes ago:

"Anyone surprised that Carter did not mention Thursday's news about the discovery of a virus that might be the cause of chronic fatigue syndrome?

I thought for sure he'd discuss it. Although the new discovery doesn't necessarily bode well for Ampligen. If you read the reports on the new virus, researchers are excited to try existing antiviral drugs, like those currently approved for HIV, to see if they can help patients with chronic fatigue syndrome.

Recall that Ampligen's antiviral track record isn't very good. The drug failed studies in HIV patients, for instance."

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10609585/1/hemispherx-ceo-carter-speaks-biobuzz.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN