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| This is where you can post questions about the page entitled The Underlying Cause of "Disease." |
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QUOTE: A security system wired within every cell to detect the presence of rogue viral DNA can sometimes go awry, triggering an autoimmune response to single-stranded bits of the cell's own DNA, according to a report in the August 22nd issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication. The source of that single-stranded DNA is so-called endogenous retroelements—genetic elements accounting for a substantial portion of the genome that can move to new locations using a "copy and paste" mechanism, according to the researchers.
The new findings help to explain the cause of a rare autoimmune disorder known as Aicardi-Goutieres Syndrome in which infants appear to suffer from an acute viral infection, despite the fact that no virus had ever been found...
Detection of foreign nucleic acids is an ancient form of host defense, the researchers explained. In vertebrates, nucleic acid detection activates a program of antiviral defense designed to neutralize the spread of infection. This antiviral program is coordinated by type I interferons (IFNs), which direct a multifaceted response to restrict viral replication within infected cells, alert neighboring cells to the presence of infection, and expand white blood cells to provide long-term and specific protection against the virus... UNQUOTE.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080821163850.htm |
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QUOTE: ...In a very promising preliminary study, Miller and colleagues found that the pattern of gene expression differed between caregivers of family members with cancer relative to a matched group of individuals who did not have this type of life stress. They found that among the caregivers, even though they had normal cortisol levels in their blood, the pattern of gene expression in the monocytes, a type of white blood cell involved in the body's immune response, was altered so that they were relatively less responsive to the anti-inflammatory actions of cortisol, but relatively more responsive to pro-inflammatory actions of a transcription factor called nuclear factor-kappa B, or NF-κB... UNQUOTE.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080827100816.htm |
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QUOTE: ...Life processes in cells require a reducing environment that needs to be sustained with the help of a large number of antioxidative enzymes...
If the equilibrium in the organism moves towards oxidative processes, then this is known as oxidative stress. Oxidative stress, for instance, is associated with the aging of body cells. Furthermore, a strong accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) along with drops in cellular concentrations of glutathione, (GSH), the major antioxidant produced by the body, is well known as a common cause of acute and chronic degenerative diseases, such as, arteriosclerosis, diabetes, stroke, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases...
Interestingly enough, this cell death could be completely prevented by Vitamin E, but not by water-soluble antioxidants. Since the oxidation of fatty acids in this cell death pathway, was of paramount importance, multiple studies were performed to describe, in greater detail, the source and nature of lipid peroxides... UNQUOTE.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080903075612.htm
The point I've made on this site numerous times is that there are ways to make your body more resistant to this stress, without taking "supplements." It's easy to do with simple dietary changes, but because of claims against "saturated fat" (which is never even defined in a way that makes any sense, but which can vary from one researcher to another), people are being told to eat the kinds of foods that usually lead to more oxidative stress rather than less. |
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QUOTE: ...Mobashery's team synthesized pieces of the cell wall of the bacterium Escherichia coli in his laboratory and was able to use the synthetic wall components to observe the chemical reactions that take place during the recycling process.
The researchers found that a member of the lytic transglycosylases family of enzymes known as M1tB performed the requisite cell wall fragmentation on the synthetic sample of the cell wall from their laboratory. They also were able to measure the rate of the transformation by M1tB, determining that 14,000 pieces of the cell wall are processed by each molecule of M1tB in one bacterial generation.
The product of the M1tB reaction on the cell wall is the entity that initiates the recycling event, but when it diffuses out of the bacterium, it causes the onset of the pro-inflammatory events associated with bacterial infections... UNQUOTE.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080908185322.htm |
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QUOTE: ...There are more bacteria in our bodies than there ever have been people on the Earth. In fact, there are more bacteria in the colon than there are human cells in our bodies...
Enterococcus faecalis is a normal gut bacterium. Unlike most gut bacteria, it can survive using two different types of metabolism: respiration and fermentation. When the bacteria use fermentation they release by-products. One of these is a kind of oxygen molecule called superoxide, which can damage DNA and may play a role in the formation of colon tumours...
"We found that superoxide from E. faecalis led to strong signalling in immune cells called macrophages. It also altered the way some cells in the gut grew and divided and even increased the productivity of genes that are associated with cancer..." UNQUOTE.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080921201716.htm |
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A new report began with this statement:
"Viruses dramatically increase cellular metabolism..."
However, has the author put the cart before the proverbial horse here? Is it the case that one gets "infected" with a virus, then metabolism increases, or is it that something like too much iron and PUFAs in the diet leads to viral activation when the body is stressed severely, in turn leading to the increased metabolism? Or is it just that certain diets lead to increased metabolism, and then exposure to an amount of virus that would otherwise not be a problem becomes a "viral disease?" Today's "virologists" don't seem all that interested in this kind of question (to see the kinds of questions that interest them, go to http://cvr.bio.uci.edu/docs.html, for example), so until they do, the simple experiments required to shed light on this probably won't be conducted. If anyone can cite such an experiment that has already been conducted, please cite it here.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080928145603.htm |
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| At least several dormant viruses are known to be activated by genotoxic stress induced by e.g. UV-light (Herpes) or lipid peroxides and the like (the lambda phage of Escherichia coli - this is called the SOS response). The virus is trying to run before the cell comits suicide or is damaged beyond repair .... |
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QUOTE: A bacteria cell's 'crisis command centre' has been observed for the first time swinging into action to protect the cell from external stress and danger, according to new research published in Science...
The crisis command centre in certain bacteria cells is a large molecule, dubbed a 'stressosome' by the scientists behind today's research...
"The cascade of events inside bacteria cells that occurs as a result of stressosomes receiving warning signals leads to particular genes inside the cell being transcribed more. This means that some genes already active inside the cell are 'turned up' so that levels of particular proteins in the cell increase. These changes to the protein make-up of the cell enable it to survive in a hostile or challenging environment..." UNQUOTE.
This is an important point, because when cells are stressed, different kinds of molecules might be present in that ill person's blood. Unfortunately, because of various and inaccurate "germ theory" notions that dominate the minds of most of today's biological researchers, these molecules are sometimes mistaken as "foreign," and attributed to a "germ."
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081002172007.htm |
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If you've read the posts on this thread and my comments elsewhere about the apparent role of cytokines in "AIDS," this new report will come as no surprise:
TITLE: Hodgkin Lymphoma: New Characteristics Discovered; Cytokines Help Tumor Cells Evade Immune System.
QUOTE: ...It has only been a few years since IL-21 was discovered in T cells. The function of IL-21, however, varies greatly depending on the kind of cell. In some cell types IL-21 stimulates the body's protection program, which researchers call programmed cell death or apoptosis. Each cell contains this apoptosis program so that it will self-destruct when it is altered or defective. This prevents the defective cell from damaging the entire organism.
Thus, IL-21 stimulates the T cells of the immune system and, for instance, drives cells of the chronic-lymphatic leukemia of the B-cell type (B-CLL) to apoptosis. By contrast, in T-cell leukemias, IL-21 does just the opposite and stimulates malignant growth. For the first time, the researchers from Berlin and Rome were able to show that IL-21 is produced by lymphatic cells originally derived from B cells. IL-21 activates a specific signaling pathway (STAT3), thus up-regulating the expression of a group of specific genes in HRS cells which support the unchecked growth and survival of HRS cells... UNQUOTE.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081008113432.htm
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TITLE: Sunlight Exposure Plus Low Antioxidant Levels May Place Older Adults At Risk For Eye Disease.
QUOTE: People who lack essential antioxidants, and who have high levels of sunlight exposure, have a higher risk of developing advanced macular degeneration (AMD), according to a study published today in the journal Archives of Ophthalmology. AMD is the leading cause of poor vision in the UK... UNQUOTE.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081013171431.htm |
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Fatty acids clue to Alzheimer's
Controlling the level of a fatty acid in the brain could help treat Alzheimer's disease, an American study has suggested.
Tests on mice showed that reducing excess levels of the acid lessened animals' memory problems and behavioural changes.
Writing in Nature Neuroscience, the team said fatty acid levels could be controlled through diet or drugs.
A UK Alzheimer's expert called the work "robust and exciting".
There are currently 700,000 people living with dementia in the UK, but that number is forecast to double within a generation.
Over-stimulation
Scientists from Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease and the University of California looked at fatty acids in the brains of normal mice and compared them with those in mice genetically engineered to have an Alzheimer's-like condition.
They identified raised levels of a fatty acid called arachidonic acid in the brains of the Alzheimer's mice.
Its release is controlled by the PLA2 enzyme.
The scientists again used genetic engineering to lower PLA2 levels in the animals, and found that even a partial reduction halted memory deterioration and other impairments.
Dr Rene Sanchez-Mejia, who worked on the study, said: "The most striking change we discovered in the Alzheimer's mice was an increase in arachidonic acid and related metabolites [products] in the hippocampus, a memory centre that is affected early and severely by Alzheimer's disease."
He suggested too much arachidonic acid might over-stimulate brain cells, and that lowering levels allowed them to function normally.
Dr Lennart Mucke, who led the research, added: "In general, fatty acid levels can be regulated by diet or drugs.
"Our results have important therapeutic implications because they suggest that inhibition of PLA2 activity might help prevent neurological impairments in Alzheimer's disease.
"But a lot more work needs to be done before this novel therapeutic strategy can be tested on humans."
'Cautious optimism'
Rebecca Wood, chief executive of the UK's Alzheimer's Research Trust, said: "This research on mice suggests a connection between fatty acids and the abnormal brain activity that exists in Alzheimer's disease.
"This is cause for cautious optimism, as fatty acid levels can be controlled to some extent by diet and drugs.
"However, it is not yet clear if these findings are applicable to humans, and a lot more research is needed before any human trials can be conducted."
Professor Clive Ballard, director of Research at the Alzheimer's Society, said the work was "robust and exciting".
He added: "This is a novel and potentially exciting area of research, but it is still at a very early stage.
"Much more research is needed to see if fatty acids could lead to a treatment for those living with the devastating effects of Alzheimer's disease."
SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7676606.stm |
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QUOTE: A University of Calgary scientist confirms that it is how our immune system responds, not the rhinovirus itself, that causes cold symptoms. Of more than 100 different viruses that can cause the common cold, human rhinoviruses are the major cause... UNQUOTE.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081029101201.htm |
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I was surprised to know that not only my grandfather, but also his mother and brother, had appendicitis issues. However, since then, nobody from that line of descent has had such problems. I knew they used a lot of olive oil, and I asked him if it came in large metal cans. He said yes, and that it was imported from Italy (to the USA). Knowing what he ate as a child, I knew he couldn't have had arachidonic acid in his cells, and knowing that appendicitis is an inflammatory problem, this seemed to require an explanation. Another piece of information that might be relevant is that stomach cancer was the major cancer killer back then (in the 1930s) and it is now a "minor" cancer in the USA. It took me a few days to think about these interesting facts.
Then it dawned on me. Food back then was not supplemented with antioxidants and antibacterial or antifungal agents, as is the case now. Low-quality olive oil transported across the Atlantic Ocean and then used in cooking must have been really harsh on the GI tract, as well as the "good bacteria" that one hopes populates it. This was another factor, one that most Americans at the time didn't have to face, because they were not ingesting low-quality olive oil used in cooking. These bouts of appendicitis they had seem to have been acute (if his descriptions were accurate) and arachidonic acid is especially problematic in a chronic inflammatory context. Without AA in your cells, you can still have acute inflammation, as I've had with some cuts and also "ingrown" toenail issues over the last few years. Thus, the high incidence of stomach cancer was likely due to constant problems with food that began to go rancid in the stomach or was full of bacteria or fungus, leading to frequent bouts of acute inflammation in the stomach. |
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QUOTE: When it comes to the decision to wake up and grow, bacterial spores "listen in" to find out what their neighbors are doing and then they follow the crowd, according to a new report in the October 31st issue of the journal Cell. Although there is still a lot to learn about how this process works, the discovery could lead to a new kind of antimicrobial agent that works not by killing active bacteria, but by keeping dormant bacteria—which typically resist traditional antibiotics—inactive... UNQUOTE.
Is this even necessary? Perhaps in extreme cases where people have abused their bodies, but for most of us, eating the right kind of diet (low in PUFAs, rich in food items that contain natural antioxidants, etc.) is probably more than enough to avoid dangerous bacteria "infections."
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081030123827.htm |
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TITLE: How Chronic Inflammation Can Lead To Stomach Cancer.
QUOTE: ...elevated levels of a single proinflammatory cytokine, an immune system protein called interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β), can start the progression towards stomach cancer. These results are published in the Nov. 4, 2008 issue of Cancer Cell. The researchers hope to use this finding to develop ways to block this process, thereby preventing cancer from developing.
"This study shows that accumulation of IL-1β, which is induced by infection with the bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) in the gastrointestinal tract, is a significant contributor to the onset of stomach cancer..." UNQUOTE.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081105135126.htm
What is not mentioned is that a huge percentage of the third world has H. pylori "infection" and yet does not have especially high stomach cancer rates. The problem, rather, appears to be that having arachidonic acid in one's cells makes the inflammatory response much more pronounced and long lasting. |
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