The PolyBio Research Initiative: New ME/CFS research from some of the brightest young minds!

junkcrap50

Senior Member
Messages
1,392
Has anyone read the article (it's subscription protected) or know what "immunostimulatory therapy" they've used?
Looking at its authors, the "immunostimulatory therapy" is probably The Marshall Protocol. The protocol and science behind it is at best questionable. Whenever you have bad side effects from the treatment, adherents say "that's how you know it's working." People have been following the protocol for several YEARS with little improvement and a lot of suffering.

You can read any scientific paper behind a paywall using the website "Sci-Hub" the ".com" suffix changes every once in a while but here are some:
sci-hub.do
sci-hub.ren
sci-hub.se
sci-hub.st
sci-hub.es.ht
sci-hub.it.nf

Is it that at Mass. Hospital they have the means to do these massive investigations?
Yes it is. Mass General is one of the leading hospitals in the country. It is training hospital for Harvard Medical School.
 

Rufous McKinney

Senior Member
Messages
13,495
I think the best bet is going to be FMT.


For 7 months I had my grandaughter here and for 7 months I am fully considering going for it. Her perfectly lovely bowel movements (mostly)...

Why was I chicken? I think she would have been a perfect donor. (altho she is possibly not my blood type...). I was not brave enough.

But yes- research and - diagnostics. How do basic IBS victims differ from ME sufferers? No study can happen until you can say: Here are patients with ME. Or a consistent thing we call ME. And then same with the IBS. (or all the other versions of gut problems).
 

msf

Senior Member
Messages
3,650
While I think he is right about neuroinflammation being a primary cause of symptoms. I don't think that each person has a different cause. I have said this many times before, because I feel so strongly about it.

I think they have already found the primary cause but haven't been able to prove it yet on a biochemical level. ME/CFS researcher Mady Hornig has a video out explaining what she thinks is the cause of ME/CFS and how it causes mito. dysfunction, neuroinflammation, immune system dysfunction and all other symptoms.

She thinks it's gut dysbiosis and leaky gut. This is why they can't find any other pathogens causing this illness, imo. High levels of lipopolysaccharides (LPS) in ME/CFS have been found in several studies and several ME/CFS researchers have said they think the gut is the main cause of ME/CFS.

Hornig thinks toxins from the gut, including lipopolysaccharides, hydrogen sulfide and lactic acid are causing immune system dysfunction, mito. dysfunction, brain inflammation and all of our symptoms.

She says these toxins can get directly into the bloodstream from the gut but also the vagus nerve can detect inflammatory bacteria in the gut and signal the brain, causing an immune response in the brain, neuroinflammation and the sickness response.

Here is a link to the video if you are interested.

This is quite obviously the approach that Hornig, Lipkin, Hanson, Levine, Armstrong, MacGregor, KDM and Maes are taking (the latter two much earlier than the rest). And in the blue corner we have....is there anyone still working on autoimmunity?

I think this is an encouraging sign, that the researchers involved in the field are starting to agree on the problem - previously there were always multiple competing theories about ME, but I think the increase in biomed studies in recent years and the influx of serious researchers has helped people to focus on the ones that are science-based, rather than gut-based as it were (as in based on the gut feeling of a particular researcher, as a lot of previously espoused theories seem to have been).
 

bensmith

Senior Member
Messages
1,547
have you improved with trying to fix your gut? @ljimbo423. Thats a long time! What protocol?

has anybody here tried fmt?

im trying to see levine but havnt yet. Does she help work on gut or is that outsourced?

im down to about 4 foods and salt at present.

i bought some probiotics she recommends.
 
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ljimbo423

Senior Member
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4,705
Location
United States, New Hampshire
have you improved with trying to fix your gut? @ljimbo423. Thats a long time! What protocol?

I have improved from about a 3 to a 6 on the ME/CFS disability scale we use here at PR. I'm doing a low carb diet with herbs to kill off bacterial overgrowth in my gut.

I'm also taking things to help with neuroinflammation, like curcumin and high dose EPA/DHA from fish oil and supplements to help support my mitochondria.
 

bensmith

Senior Member
Messages
1,547
Thanks thats great. I need to try this. Maybe i can go back low carb. I was but added potatos. Hard to calories without. My histamines are issues so maybe not herbs yet. But i will try fish oul. Cur seeemed to make me feel a bit odd i think.
 

MonkeyMan

Senior Member
Messages
424
This is quite obviously the approach that Hornig, Lipkin, Hanson, Levine, Armstrong, MacGregor, KDM and Maes are taking (the latter two much earlier than the rest). And in the blue corner we have....is there anyone still working on autoimmunity?

Yes, but autoimmunity and the microbiome are inextricably tied together, are they not?
 

msf

Senior Member
Messages
3,650
Yes, but autoimmunity and the microbiome are inextricably tied together, are they not?

You could say that about any disease that involves the gut, it doesn't necessarily mean that a particular gut disease is an autoimmune one. I am sure that there is some autoimmunity present in ME, as has been observed recently in long COVID, but whether that is a major driver of either disease is another question. The Rituximab results would seem to suggest that most ME patients don't have a B-cell mediated autoimmune disease anyway. My guess is that if we ever find out what that expanded population of CD8 T cells that Mark Davis found is reacting to, it will mostly be non-self antigens, although I guess that doesn't necessarily rule out autoimmunity as a major driver of the disease.
 

Pyrrhus

Senior Member
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4,172
Location
U.S., Earth
Fascinating new article on infections and the Warburg Effect from the minds at the PolyBio Research Initiative:

Pathogens Hijack Host Cell Metabolism: Intracellular Infection as a Driver of the Warburg Effect in Cancer and Other Chronic Inflammatory Conditions
https://ij.hapres.com/htmls/IJ_1341_Detail.html
Proal and Van Elzakker 2021 said:
The Warburg effect refers to a metabolic state in which cells preferentially use aerobic glycolysis rather than oxidative phosphorylation to generate ATP and macromolecules.

A number of chronic inflammatory conditions are characterized by host cells that adopt a sustained, pathological Warburg-like metabolism. In cancer, previously healthy cells shift into a Warburg state centered on rapid energy production and increased cell proliferation that drives tumor formation. Macrophage in atherosclerotic plaque and in sarcoidosis granuloma can also harbor a Warburg-like phenotype that promotes an inflammatory milieu.

The question of why host cells in patients with cancer and other chronic inflammatory conditions adapt a pathological Warburg-like metabolism is a matter of debate. This review/hypothesis piece explores how intracellular infection can contribute to this Warburg metabolism or related pathological metabolic states. We detail molecular mechanisms by which viral, bacterial, and protozoan intracellular pathogens can induce, or contribute to, a Warburg-like metabolism in infected host cells in order to meet their own replication and nutritional needs.

We also discuss how host defense towards infection may impact cellular metabolic changes. We then provide examples of how many of these same intracellular pathogens have been identified in tumors, atherosclerotic lesions, granuloma, and other tissues containing cells with a Warburg or altered metabolism. Last, we examine further trends associated with infection and host cell metabolism, including how pathogen-driven hijacking of host cell lipid metabolism can support viral, bacterial, and parasite survival and replication.
(spacing added for readability)


Related discussion:

Pathogens Hijack Host Cell Metabolism: Intracellular Infection as a Driver of the Warburg Effect in Cancer and Other Chronic Inflammatory Conditions
https://forums.phoenixrising.me/thr...-other-chronic-inflammatory-conditions.86656/
 

Reading_Steiner

Senior Member
Messages
245
I would say that this man is totally correct on some of what he says in the video, I have a few holes my my teeth because of the lockdown and stuff and I leaving it as long as possible, at the critical point where I would expect to see bacteria getting into the blood I am experiencing sound sensitivity ( which is uncommon for me ), this would seem to correspond to what he said about.. was it the thalamus ? also experiencing a sort of fatigue that is unfamiliar, sort of feel zoned out and emotionally disconnected, unmotivated.
 

lenora

Senior Member
Messages
5,021
After so many years of being involved in this work, I agree with Dr. VanElzakker, the cause is different in each patient. Perhaps in order to rule some things out, all patients should have MRI's prescribed by their neurologists as part of finding answers to these mysterious symptoms exhibited by people. I think that surgery will be considered in a lot of these cases. We're really only just beginning to understand this aspect of the illness now, so it will take time.

Even if surgery is performed, as a group many of us will return to suffering from ME, so there's obviously something else going on....probably inflammation causing other problems. A few people will walk away with no other problems, but many of us will have this as a lifelong condition that may wax or wane over the years. Stress may cause a return to the illness, so we all have to learn ways to control this problem.

We're happy to have Holland's input and especially that of @Dr. VanElzakker. Thank-you. Yours, Lenora.
 

Pyrrhus

Senior Member
Messages
4,172
Location
U.S., Earth
PolyBio has some new talks posted on their website!

https://polybio.org/#section-presentations

EDIT: also available on their YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0OFVvET5SnVzfKWHAwebRA

Amy Proal: Introduction to PolyBio; ME/CFS & Long Covid/PACS research considerations

Michael VanElzakker: Studying the intersection of autonomic, neurovascular, & glymphatic systems

Matthew Anderson: Neuropathology study of immune penetration at the perivascular spaces in autism

Lena Pernas: Toxoplasma - mitochondria interactions, and Toxoplasma activity in COVID-19

Felix Ellet: Microfluidic devices visualizing host-pathogen interactions in Lyme

Resia Pretorius: Consequences of coagulation in COVID-19 and Long Covid

Marcelo Friere: Host-viral inflammatory responses in the saliva of COVID-19 patients

William Eimer: "Rethinking Alzheimer’s: Infection, amyloid, & innate immunity
 
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