Herpes remains active even when no symptoms appear

[Waverunner]

Very interesting. Shows how little we know about viruses. Could they induce autoimmune disease and when will there be working treatments?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140729093158.htm

Scientists investigating the herpes virus have been surprised to find an ongoing conflict in the cells of sufferers, even when the virus is apparently dormant.

Herpes Simplex Type 1 is a virus that causes cold sores. It remains in the body's nervous system indefinitely after infection. Around 80 per cent of Australians carry the virus, although it is usually in a dormant state.

"We thought when the disease was dormant, it was a truce," said Associate Professor David Tscharke, from the Research School of Biology. "It turns out that the virus is waking up more often than we thought, but our cells are constantly pushing it down."

The findings could lead to new treatments, and give researchers insights into why cold sores only flare up sporadically and why some infected people never suffer cold sores at all.

Associate Professor Tscharke's team used both cells and viruses that were genetically modified so that infected cells changed colour to a bright yellow, even if the virus was dormant.

These individual cells were then identified using a microscope equipped with laser that can be used to cut them out, allowing their level of virus activity to be measured.

"We expected that we would see no activity in the dormant cells," Associate Professor Tscharke said.

"The surprise came when we found the virus was doing something in many cells. Not all of these cells have the same level of virus activity either. For some it's very low and in others more of the virus genes are turned on. The host cells were responding most strongly when there was lots of virus activity.

"When we thought there was nothing going on we had no targets to look at. Now we know there is an interaction we can look for ways to help the good guys to win."

 

[minkeygirl]

I've had HS11 since college and I learned that over the years. You don't need to have an active outbreak to have problems.

 

[Gingergrrl]

All the herpes viruses stay in your body forever (whether you have symptoms or not) like the house guest who never leaves...

 

[Martial]

Very interesting. Shows how little we know about viruses. Could they induce autoimmune disease and when will there be working treatments?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140729093158.htm

My mom and sister get cold sores but no one else in the family, my mom is 58 years old and is a personal trainer, and fitness coach who runs 6-8 miles a day and exercises like 5 days a week, whatever is true about the virus it sure does not affect her health.

 

[Waverunner]

My mom and sister get cold sores but no one else in the family, my mom is 58 years old and is a personal trainer, and fitness coach who runs 6-8 miles a day and exercises like 5 days a week, whatever is true about the virus it sure does not affect her health.

I fully agree, that there are many people who have herpes virus infections but don't have any symptoms except some cold sores every now and then. On the other side we can never exclude, that there are some individuals, in which these viruses lead to other symptoms. Humans are too heterogeneous, both from their genome as well as epigenome, in order for us to draw overall conclusions.

 

[heapsreal]

if its happening with cold sores, theres a good chance its happening with all the other herpes viruses.

A recent post of mine showed how ebv reacted in MS patients and treatment with supercharged T cells was able to manage this virus and reduce the symptoms and progression of MS.

I think we forget that there is also a difference between reactivate where the virus wakes up and sponges from us etc and replicates which is where it multiplies and has lots of baby viruses to sponge of us. Antivirals only seem to stop the replication process, not so much the reactivation. This i think is why people on antivirals still crash etc but will note that when on antivirals they dont crash as hard or as long as before, as the amount of virus is slowly reducing, the little buggers eventually die off. Probably the reason why one needs to be on antivirals for years or maybe forever if their immune system isnt strong enough to suppress these viruses??

This may also help explain whats driving alot of autoimmune diseases.

 

[Gingergrrl]

Hopefully if the anti-viral stops the little buggers from replicating then the immune system can kick in and stop the re-activation. I know the virus is there for life but hopefully it can go back into it's inactive state (at least that is my hope!) Supposedly EBV is found in 100% of cases of MS and also causes certain lymphomas and other cancers and is far from just a one time "mono" what most people think.

 

[Martial]

I fully agree, that there are many people who have herpes virus infections but don't have any symptoms except some cold sores every now and then. On the other side we can never exclude, that there are some individuals, in which these viruses lead to other symptoms. Humans are too heterogeneous, both from their genome as well as epigenome, in order for us to draw overall conclusions.

Of course, I don't mean to draw conclusions for everyone. Just find it interesting to be honest out of my entire family, and cousins, even going back generations no one had a single real issue with disease that serious besides me. My cousins caught lyme as well in New Jersey but treated early. Grandfather was paralyzed but from a car accident. No one seems to get sick beyond the basic cold though, I was the same until I got whatever kind of nasty infections I have now too.

 

[anciendaze]

Please note that the human herpes viruses are numbered in the order they were discovered. HSV1 is the oldest and best known.

Second, this paper addresses genes active in lytic replication, not just those of early stages of infection, when it is possible for a virus to replicate DNA without causing cell lysis. The virus is trying to kill those cells, but the cells are fighting back.

HSV1 is considered "mostly harmless", but there have long been rare cases in the literature where HSV1 causes fatal encephalitis, a clear indication it can invade the CNS. Why does this happen in some cases, but not in most others? Nobody knows.

From my own experience I can tell you that when I have had a mysterious fever in the past, and a doctor spotted a "cold sore" showing reactivated HSV1, he/she would tell me this (most likely) indicated I had a viral infection, not bacterial. This is fairly common medical knowledge: viral infections cause latent viruses to become active. More common medical knowledge: "depression" following viral infections is much more common than following bacterial infections. I could go on to talk about relapses and remissions of schizophrenia (which I have not experienced) in connection with viral infections.

Can anyone explain why we are just now investigating viruses in connection with chronic illness, and still arguing about functional mental illness following viral infection? Is it coincidence that psychoactive drugs like fluoxetine have powerful effects on some classes of viruses?

Aside: when I did a search for a current reference on fluoxetine and antiviral properties it just happened that I also pulled up a reference to fluoxetine in groundwater. This is evidence of just how widespread and careless prescription of powerful antidepressants has become. If success in medicine is measured by reducing incidence of the illness being treated I would have to say treatment of major depression has been a failure.

 

[heapsreal]

The whole ebv thing could come down to B-cells. Good section in the thread on the front page of this forum.
Its mentioned that in many cfs patients that ebv/memory B-cells are diminished and in a subset they are absent. We need B-cells for a healthy immune response.

I recall reading Oslers web that many in the tahoe outbreak had mono with elevated antibodies but when tested some time later, i think years, they didnt produce any antibodies. This struck a cord with me as i had postive ebv after having ebv type symptoms, painful neck glands, fatigue etc. These were igg life long antibodies. How do i know it was a rather recent infection? 6 months earlier i thought i had mono and tested totally negative for ebv but turned out i had cmv mono. Maybe i did have ebv mono prior to all this but if i lose antibodies quick then i guess it can keep happening?? I think this loss of antibodies could be a more specific subset maybe and possible a group that have to continue on antivirals or relapse.

It was also mentioned that EBV is found in non B-cells. This may be a reason for relapses with rituximab, also if antivirals cant get at ebv in b-cells, this may explain why full remissions are few with antivirals. Although this seems more complicated the more infections one has.

I would really like to see Dr Kogelnek run a study with both rituximab and an antiviral, if he already hasnt.

Interesting times just doesnt seem to come fast enough does it

 

[Gingergrrl]

I would really like to see Dr Kogelnek run a study with both rituximab and an antiviral, if he already hasnt.t

@heapsreal I am pretty sure that Dr. Kogelnick is either running or planning to run a study like this as I remember reading about it on their website or literature. I am not in any of their studies but I know that they do a number of them.

 

[NK17]

@heapsreal I am pretty sure that Dr. Kogelnick is either running or planning to run a study like this as I remember reading about it on their website or literature. I am not in any of their studies but I know that they do a number of them.

Dr. Kogelnik has been working hard to be able to set up a 4 arm, double-blind, placebo controlled, randomized study with both Rituxan and Valcyte.
Basically 25% of the subjects would get Rituxan alone, 25% Valcyte alone, 25% Rituxan + Valcyte and the remaining 25% placebo.
Once the study finished and the data analyzed and then unblinded, if the treatment was proved successful then the 25% of the patient who received the placebo would get the chance to be treated.

This kind of studies are very expensive and extremely complex to organize, plan and implement. We know this from the Norwegian (Prof. Mella and Dr. Fluge).

If you google OMI MERIT, Open Medicine Institute Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Roundtable on Immunology and Treatment, you'll read the blueprint of all the most important project that Dr. Kogelnik is hoping to have funded, amongst them this Rituxan+Valcyte study. MERIT is an international effort, many familiar names are part of it.

We need to help Dr. Kogelnik, Dr. Montoya and Dr. Davis to raise awareness on their important work and at some point raise funds.

I wouldn't be surprised if Fluge and Mella will be nominated for a Nobel in medicine and Dr. Kogelnik, Montoya and Davis would certainly share, at least in spirit, such a high honor.

 

[Gingergrrl]

@NK17 Thank you for posting about the study and I knew OMI was working on this research but did not remember the details.

 

[NK17]

@NK17 Thank you for posting about the study and I knew OMI was working on this research but did not remember the details.

My pleasure. The more know about OMI's future projects, the merrier and the better .