The way an autoimmune disease works, the antibodies will be bombing the folate receptors provided their "trigger" is active. The folate receptors are located on the outside of the cell membrane where the antibodies can "see" them.
Those receptors are about bringing THF into the cells. So you probably would need higher concentration of folate to get a certain effect since active receptor density on the cell surfaces would be lower. Taking folinic acid or l5mthf would bypass this in principle I think. BUT ... taking lots of precursors to THF may makes things worse ... maybe.
We are presumably talking about antibodies to a receptor that binds a substrate to transport it into cells and NOT the production of the substrate. For example, I have glutamic acid decarboxylase antibodies. That means they attack the enzyme that
produces GABA. Not the GABA receptors themselves. If I stimulate in my case GAD activity, I get
worse. But why would the presence of THF and its precursors trigger the antibodies any worse unless the body adaptively creates more folate receptors in response to high plasma concentrations, which sadly I do not know the answer to. l5mthf and folinic acid however, do not bind to the folate receptors in question to my knowledge.
Still not sure how the body would handle lots of floating THF or its precurors in the bloodstream and not much ability to dock those to make folinic acid and l5mthf. That could have its own issues
I would be cautious about jumping to the conclusion that this a common problem. CFS is not uncommon yes. But once you ignore Hashiimoto's, Celiac's and type 1.5 diabetes, autoimmune disease are pretty rare. It is an interesting concept though. I will discuss with one of my doctors.
I would also think this would have some sort of signature pattern on an HDRI methylation panel or equivalent. Just not sure what the pattern would be. Depends on their testing methods also I suppose.
From their website:
"Methylation Pathway Parameters Tested:
Glutathione (oxidized), Glutathione (reduced), S-adenosyl-methionine (RBC), S-adenosyl-homocysteine (RBC), Tetrahydrofolate (THE), 5-methyl-THF, 10-forrnyl-THF, 5-formyl-THF, Folic Acid, Folinic Acid, Folic Acid (RBC), Adenosine"
Here is Rich Vank's explanation of the test:
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/methylation-pathways-panel.4711/
So if you have antifolate receptor antibodies would you not expect high plasma THF and low 5mthf and probably low folinic acid since the latter two cannot be generated well from transported THF? Just a thought.