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Scientists discover 'fatigue' protein produced by activation of HHV6 that mimics the classic symptoms of depression

YippeeKi YOW !!

Senior Member
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16,047
Location
Second star to the right ...
While none of this info may be new to some of you, the specific findings of the study were extremely interesting to me and hopefully to others here.

I think the study may miss the point, however. Many of us have presented with classic symptoms of "depression", as it's understood by Western medicine, and promptly treated for what tDrs apparently view as a serve deficiency of SSRIs or SNRIs, or .... well, you get the drift.

It's like using a limited vocabulary to describe a donkey as a small horse with large ears.

Close. No cigar.

What our brains and bodies may be responding to is a set of symptoms of something entirely different, even tho it looks a lot like the classic depression Drs are used to looking for, and finding, and treating. Those treatments' effects, however, can be devastating if the problem is the excess calcium produced by the SITH 1 proteins.

Read on for more. The article is an easy browse.

Scientists discover 'fatigue' protein that raises hope of blood test to diagnose depression
https://www.yahoo.com/news/scientists-discover-fatigue-protein-raises-044047721.html

"When a person becomes tired, however, HHV6 can become active again and can be detected in saliva. Some of the virus also travels to the olfactory bulb,
the part of the brain that is connected to the sense of smell.

Should the olfactory bulb become infected, it produces SITH1 proteins - which Prof. Kondo first identified a decade ago and jokingly named after the
Dark Lord of the Sith in the Star Wars series of films because it
“takes people to the dark side”, he said.

The proteins produce excessive amounts of calcium, which then flow
into brain cells and kill them. The death of cells also reduces the regeneration of nerves in the hippocampus, which controls human memory. Over time, the protein impacts a person’s ability to make decisions, induces lethargy and other symptoms linked to depression."
 

Wishful

Senior Member
Messages
5,684
Location
Alberta
Well, there are changes that happen after death, some quite quickly, so a living brain might show markers of ME whereas a brain that has had samples taken even hours after death might not show. Maybe some factor involved with ME is important in its active fluctuations, rather than its static level, and the brain will be pretty static after death.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
Interesting that the paper finds only HHV-6B produces SITH-1, but not HHV-6A nor HHV-7, as far as they can tell:
When we examined SITH-1 expression in cells infected with HHV-6A and HHV-7, we were unable to detect SITH-1 mRNA with the structure indicated in this study.

Therefore, we consider our present findings are thought to be limited to HHV-6B. However, if a latent protein with a similar function to SITH-1 can be identified for HHV-6A, it may be possible to extend the results of the present study to HHV-6A.

HHV-6A is actually the more neurovirulent of the two HHV-6 types, and is more frequently found in patients with neuroinflammatory diseases like multiple sclerosis. Dr Daniel Peterson found that 15% of ME/CFS patients have a HHV-6A infection in their cerebrospinal fluid. Ref: 1
 
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