XMRV Researcher Jailed
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As many readers and people with an interest in Chronic Fatigue will have read over the last few months, the researcher Judy Mikovits has been having a hard time finding labs to replicate her controversial findings regarding the XMRV virus.
Chronic Fatigue and the Mysterious XMRV Link
Everyone who suffers with this condition and the many thousands of practitioners involved in their health recovery are interested in whether there may be a causal agent identifiable through appropriate tests – not that there is a treatment on offer, but more a case of validation I suspect. This topic has attracted a great deal of attention in the orthodox and alternative medicine world and has some time to go before the explanations become viable treatments. Keeping up to speed with the science will assist all practitioners in their potential application.
The debate over XMRV began back in 2009 when researchers led by Judy Mikovits of the Whittemore Peterson Institute (WPI) for Neuro-Immune Disease in Reno, Nevada, reported in Science: traces of the virus in peripheral blood mononuclear cells, a type of white blood cell, of 67% of CFS patients. By contrast, only 3.4% of healthy controls were found to harbour the virus. The team also showed that XMRV could infect human cells and concluded that the virus—which had previously been linked to prostate cancer—might play a role in causing CFS.
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CFIDS Virus XMRV- Link Challenged
Controversial link. A previous study of chronic fatigue syndrome pointed to a retrovirus found in cancerous prostate cells
Last October 2009 the journal Science published a paper suggesting that a virus could be linked to CFIDS as well as prostate cancer. This was commented on in this site. Initial enthusiasm for this potential pathogen explanation for the chronic and debilitating condition has taken a couple of knocks as two papers have questioned the link. Scientists in the initial study found DNA traces of a virus in the blood cells of two-thirds of 101 patients with CFIDS, compared with 4% of 218 healthy controls. XMRV is a rodent retrovirus also implicated in an aggressive prostate cancer, though why it might cause or be associated with CFIDS remains unclear.
This naturally seemed to provide a plausible association with an infectious agent that would mesh with the common development of the condition following a viral infection.
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How Can We Cure NO/ONOO− Cycle Diseases? A Review
Approaches to Curing Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, Fibromyalgia, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Gulf War Syndrome and Possibly Many Others by Martin L. Pall, PhD
From the Townsend Letter
February / March 2010
Abstract
The NO/ONOO− cycle is a biochemical vicious cycle that is thought to cause such diseases as chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME), multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), fibromyalgia (FM), and possibly a large number of other chronic inflammatory diseases. The chemistry/biochemistry of the cycle predicts that the primary mechanism is local such the depending on where it is localized in the body, it may cause a variety of different diseases. Previous studies have shown that agents that lower such cycle elements as oxidative stress, nitric oxide, inflammatory responses, mitochondrial dysfunction, tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4) depletion and NMDA activity produce clinical improvements in CFS/ME and FM patients, consistent with the predictions of the cycle mechanism. Multiagent protocols lowering several aspects of the cycle appear to be the most promising approaches to therapy. These include an entirely over-the-counter nutritional support protocol developed by the author in conjunction with the Allergy Research Group. However, such
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Chronic Fatigue Responds to Antioxidants
Many researchers have investigated effective treatments for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), but Martin Pall, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Basic Medical Sciences at Washington State University, and author of Explaining “Unexplained Illnesses”, is the first to suggest a plausible underlying cause and therapeutic method of treatment. Pall, who came down with a severe case of CFS in 1997 and fully recovered in 18 months, has dedicated the rest of his career to understanding and treating these illnesses.
Pall has discovered that abnormal levels of nitric oxide (NO), high levels of peroxynitrite (ONOO-) and superoxide activate the disabling and widely varying symptoms that characterise this entire group of unexplained illness. The fundamental approach: reducing NO-related free radical activity.
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CFIDS and Prostate Cancer What’s The Viral Link?
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CFIDS is no stranger to controversy and the latest paper published on line by Science seems to raise more controversial thoughts. The researchers led by Judy Mikovits have implicated a contagious, rodent derived retrovirus (defn: A type of virus that contains RNA as its genetic material. The RNA of the virus is translated into DNA, which inserts itself into an infected cell’s own DNA. Retroviruses can cause many diseases, including some cancers and AIDS) named xenotropic murine leukemia virus -XMRV.
