Hi CAcfs,
Thanks for posting the interesting article...
In terms of "The big question: is a virus like XMRV infectious and causing problems or...." ....... I would say that after reading this article, they aren't entirely sure if HERV-W itself is actually causing problems for people, or if it's the immune system (the second half of your "or"), OR (to add a third option), if it's actually the other infections (on page 4, they mention a researcher using artemisinin for toxoplasmosis, so in that case they are obviously trying to go after one of the other infections in these individuals).
I thought that maybe they are suggesting that HERV-W expression and the immune system are linked, and there is a problem with both HERV-W and the cytokines etc.... I'm not sure if they are suggesting it might be a vicious circle, whereby HERV-W is stimulated, which in turn triggers the cytokines, which in turn triggers the HERV-W.
I think one conclusion the researchers with HERV-W have come to, is that simply having the virus as part of your genes does NOT make you ill, on it's own. And they seem to think it's another infection that triggers the problems, as evidenced by the trend they saw with babies born in winter/early spring (when more infections are going around like influenza). The season-of-birth thing was mentioned a lot, so it's obvious they are centering this theory on the other infections that are not the retrovirus, as being "the" factor on whether or not one is sick. Also, they mentioned the "acute onset after mono-like illness" scenario. So again, they are building a case for illness caused not just by this retrovirus.
So the takeaway message for me was that we can't really place blame only on retroviruses. Well, in the case of HERV-W.
Yes, but I think they are suggesting that if they can suppress the expression of HERV-W, then this might successfully treat the associated diseases.
What's strange is that, every person has this HERV-W (or was I reading that wrong? I need to go back and check, but too tired now). But not everyone has HIV. I'm guessing that those with HERV-W but not sick with MS/bipolar/schizophrenia don't show antibodies to HERV-W, because it hasn't really been "activated" for them in their lifetime? Am I understanding that correctly?
Yes, everyone has HERV-W because it is an 'endogenous' retrovirus, which means that it is actually a section of our own human DNA. HIV is an 'exogenous' virus which means that it behaves in the normal way that we think about infectious viruses (i.e. it's an independent virus that infects us).
They talk about endogenous retrovirus 'expression' because in some cases our cells start to make the proteins, or viral particles, that the HERV's encode for.
So I think that they are suggesting that people with MS/bipolar/schizophrenia either express a lot of these HERV viral particles, or they react badly to them.
(So that makes you wonder, with the XMRV testing, if more healthy people have it in their bodies but just won't test positive because XMRV wasn't activated? Or maybe everyone here already has realized that, I dunno).
XMRV is an exogenous virus (infectious & independent) so it infects us by being an active virus.
If it's undetectable I think it is more likely that it is absent or hidden (low numbers) rather than inactive or dormant. (But i'm just guessing here.)
So *if* retroviruses are part of CFS, which model is XMRV/MLRV's folowing.....the HERV-W model or the HIV model? Or neither? I haven't been following the XMRV research much, so I'm guessing you guys have talked about some of this already. This article has sparked my interest more than anything. I personally don't think it makes sense that XMRV itself is making us sick. People live asymptomatically with HIV, right?
XMRV is similar to HIV because it is an independent infectious retrovirus. HERV-W is an endogenous retrovirus, which means that its part of the human genome, and not an independent infectious virus.
But once a retrovirus is set into motion, what can you do? This is more me thinking outloud, about the mystery of it all. The whole thing just doesn't make sense. It seems like if retroviruses were that horrible on their own, humans would be extinct, or nothing would get done (we wouldn't be out building bridges and skyscrapers and inventing electricity...because we'd be too tired/foggy/disabled).
There's only three known exogenous human retroviruses - XMRV, HIV and HTVL...
Whereas there's loads of endogenous human retroviruses (HERV's). HERV's are thought to be mostly harmless and inactive, but as the article says, there is ongoing research to see if some of them might be responsible for certain diseases. Maybe they are also responsible for auto-immune diseases and there has been research that has detected HERV-K18 (I think) particles in psoriasis lesions.
The final paragraphs of the article suggest what treatment might be available for HERV-W in the future.
Did you all notice that they even mentioned cigarette smoke and polluted water as a theory of triggers for retroviruses? To me, that makes more sense. I feel like it has to be something weird/random that is making us sick, because it can't be as simple as retrovirus=disease. My two cents.
I'm not quite sure what you mean here because a retrovirus = HIV = AIDS = disease.
Toxins have been known to trigger ME for many many years... If ME is associated with, or caused by, XMRV then ME has a similar pattern to the diseases mentioned in the article.
Thanks for the discussion CAcfs... It's a really interesting subject.