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The culprit in this case is called Bacteroides fragilis, a bacterium that normally lives in the human gut. The Queen’s team has shown that this bacterium produces a human-like
protein that could trigger autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis. This human protein is called ‘ubiquitin’ and is needed for all the normal cell processes in our bodies.
Professor Sheila Patrick, professor emeritus at Queen’s University explained:
“When we mapped the genome of Bacteroides fragilis a few years ago we were astonished to discover a human-like gene not present in any other bacteria.
The protein produced from this gene is nearly the same shape as a protein in almost every human cell.
Hi Hufsamor/all,
Yesterday I posted a reply on another thread(re Melc23 & MS issues)about work the Japanese scientists are doing on the gut.Here is some of that again.....as it ties in with this thread....
Recently i watched a programme re Gut on NHK World TV(in English).That station is Japanese.Their programmes all in English are excellent.
This particular programme featured a girl with MS and a young lady in UK(possible Olympic gymnast) with life threatening allergies(admitted to hospital on 250 occasions plus for severe shock).In both cases lab testing showed that the ladies were low in Clostridium spp(in gut)....and the MS girl was also low in Bacteroides spp.
The allergy lady was short too of lactobacillus spp(also roseburia spp & ruminococcus spp)).Seemingly higher levels of Clostridium help produce more Treg cells which help to fight off disease.
There are seemingly more than 100 different types of Clostridium in the body....and now 17 of those have been found to help produce the Treg cells.A start up company discovered the latter and have sold off their rights to a USA company.
The young MS patient has been given a solution/drink containing Treg(like cells)/made artificially.This seems to be producing good results and the young lady is making good headway with her illness.
I hope I have remembered this correctly,if not someone else who has watched the programme can correct me.
It was interesting too, to know that Japanese people have much healthier guts(higher levels of good clostridium) than western people(in a study carried out using 11 western countries including France/Germany/Spain/USA/Sweden etc.However, that may change too if young people in Japan continue eating western foods.
It was shown too in the programme that a high fibre diet(nuts/seaweed/grains/mushrooms/green vegetables) was required to help the beneficial bacteria(clostridium etc).
It should be pointed out that not all clostridium spp are helpful.
If you search their archives you may find this programme or you could write to the station(email) and request it again.I have it recorded somewhere.
This Japanese station(TV) has done numerous other programmes on the Gut and brain connections and about how they are using this information/research to help fight various illnesses.Perhaps some of the Japanese ME/CFS sufferers who are members here could expand on this work.
So would using mega doses of vitamin D have a similar effect, since it boosts tregs? There was a doctor who treated autoimmune diseases with high dose vitamin D.