Screening and testing for intra-cellular pathogens

An important sentence in my last post could have been entered in a longest sentence contest and so I would like to separate the sections and go into more detail:

"But to me it would be great if more experts and more individuals did become interested in looking into the information and maybe add further understanding and research,

and then maybe sooner than later we would develop a national blood and organ supply that is tested for intra-cellular infectious pathogens;

and develop clear guidance about the importance of measuring both hormone D and vitamin D levels

in order to clearly see which patients are actually deficient in both the vitamin and hormone forms and would therefore need to increase their sun exposure or their intake of vitamin D

and which patients actually have elevated hormone D levels instead of being deficient.

Low vitamin D levels with elevated hormone D levels may suggest the person has an underlying infection with an intra-cellular pathogen and that person would actually benefit more by limiting their sun exposure and their intake of vitamin D - and they might be able to treat the underlying infection with Benicar and antibiotics." [last post]

A few steps might be necessary for implementing this section: "and then maybe sooner than later we would develop a national blood and organ supply that is tested for intra-cellular infectious pathogens;" The first step is for the medical and academic communities to admit that intra-cellular infectious pathogens have been found that can cause acute or chronic illness. Research scientists and medical professionals can put their careers at risk if they work on alternative theories instead of working on widely accepted theories. and funding for research regarding alternative topics is unlikely to be available.

Autoimmune disease was suggested to be a normal part of aging in a college textbook that I looked at within the last few years - I don't remember the title or have the link but I was very sad to find that information in a current academic text. If autoimmune disease is part of aging then why would Rheumatoid Arthritis have a juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis version? Why would a mother have RA and have a four year old child with juvenile RA - did the child age very rapidly or could RA be passed from mother to child during pregnancy? And more importantly, might they both go into remission if they were to take Benicar and antibiotics while avoiding vitamin D and sun exposure? That mother with RA who knows first hand how much pain her child with RA is likely to experience might really like to know that a cause and effective treatment may have been discovered.

Currently the treatments that are commonly used for RA are immune suppressing drugs which can have severe side effects. Some of the drugs are also used in chemotherapy. Immune suppressing drugs are used in autoimmune disease because much of the damage that is caused over time is due to overactive white blood cells. However if the overactive white blood cells are doing their best to try to find an underlying infection then killing them off with immune suppressing drugs is also killing off the body's only defense against the infection. Intensive treatment with immune suppressing drugs may help make a patient more comfortable over the short term by suppressing symptoms caused by the overactive white blood cells but instead of leading to remission of the disease, the patient's life expectancy may be shortened to only a few years because the medications are only addressing symptoms instead of treating an underlying cause.

Once the existence of intra-cellular pathogens is officially admitted then the second step to take towards "a national blood and organ supply that is (screened and) tested for intra-cellular infectious pathogens" would be fairly easy and inexpensive to implement. Changes in the screening of potential donors could be put in place before improved testing of the donated tissue might be possible.

I forgot to include the word screened in the original sentence. The problem with testing for the presence of the intra-cellular pathogens currently is that they are hard to grow and take a long time to grow with standard Petri dish agar cultures. However there is already extensive guidelines for screening blood and organ donors regarding their medical history before they are allowed to donate. If tuberculosis can be spread by carriers who haven't had symptoms of TB then anyone who is known to have had TB in the past should probably never be allowed to donate blood or organs even if they aren't actively sick anymore. [7 and atrainceu.com from the post before the last post] And therefore if the autoimmune disease sarcoidosis, Crohn's Disease, and Rheumatoid Arthritis all involve similar infectious mechanisms then anyone who has been known to have any of those diseases in the past should also not be allowed to donate blood or organs even if they aren't actively sick anymore.

A third step towards a safer blood and organ supply would be adding the requirement to test donated tissue for the presence of intra-cellular pathogens. It is possible that advances in DNA screening might solve the problems with how difficult and long it takes to grow cultures of the pathogens. Advances in DNA screening [1] might make it possible eventually to simply screen a sample for the presence of DNA from the Mycobacterium tuberculosis pathogen or from the pathogen that Lida Mattman found involved in RA or Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS) or from her husband's coronary. [video from the post before the last post] Prof. Mattman was able to cause coronaries in lab animals by exposing them to the unidentified pathogen that she was able to culture from a tissue sample obtained from her husband after he had a coronary heart attack. In the video, ~19:30, her concern about the possibility of coronary disease being contagious was not just for hospital visitors but was also for other hospitalized patients. A healthy visitor might not be as much at risk as an immune compromised patient who is sharing a hospital room with someone who just had a coronary.

Aspergillosis fungal infections are common in patients with advanced HIV/AIDS and in transplant patients on long term immune suppressing drugs but for most people the fungus is a common contaminant that doesn't lead to an infection because our immune system prevents it from multiplying. [atrainceu.com and 2 from the post before the last post] Prof. Marshall's protocol suggests focusing more on correcting the imbalance in the hormone D metabolism that allows the pathogens to survive intra-cellularly, rather than focusing on which specific pathogens might be present because there might be a mixture of different pathogens who all developed similar ways to invade and survive within human cells. His protocol focuses on restoring the body's natural immune mechanisms so the healthy white blood cells can identify and destroy cells that are infected with any intra-cellular pathogen whatever type it might be. However his original goal was finding an effective treatment for sarcoidosis so the Benicar as an angiotensin receptor blocker may be effective in sarcoidosis if the pathogen in that disease developed the ability to make infected cells develop extra Angiotensin Receptor's as a way to disguise themselves as normal cells but the Benicar might not help someone with Grave's Disease who has bone marrow cells with abnormal Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) Receptors. Someone with Grave's Disease might need a medication developed that blocks TSH Receptors instead of blocking Angiotensin Receptors.

I have the autoimmune hyperthyroid condition called Grave's Disease. It involves abnormal bone marrow cells and may be similar to Rheumatoid Arthritis and it is associated with Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS) (19% comorbidity, 4), and the autoimmune dry eye syndrome, Sjögren's syndrome. [3] Symptoms similar to those of ALS can also be found in patients with advanced HIV/AIDS and Lyme's Disease, [4], both of which have disease processes that have been shown to interfere with the immune function of the Vitamin D Receptor. [page 19, 1, from the post before the last post] Currently my thyroid condition is in remission but that is while avoiding gluten and dietary sources of iodine and vitamin D and avoiding too much sun exposure.

We do not have a large number of children with vitamin D deficiency rickets, which suggests to me, that for most people summer sunlight exposure and the current level of fortification of the food supply with vitamin D is adequate. Canada is farther north than most of the United States and yet their population's average vitamin D level is normal (50 nmol/L). [5, 6] The number of Americans with vitamin D levels below 30 nmol/L increased between a study performed from 1988-1994 (45% > 30nmol/L, n=18,883) and one performed in 2004 (23% > 30nmol/L, n= 13,369) but there is some controversy over whether differences in how the lab test was processed might have skewed the results. [8] My fear is that some of the difference might represent an increase in the number of people with an underlying intra-cellular infection that causes depressed vitamin D levels and elevated hormone D levels rather than truly being deficient in both vitamin D and hormone D.

Hormone D levels are rarely measured because it is a more unstable chemical found in lower concentrations and current medical theory believes that the enzyme needed to convert the inactive form to the active form is only produced by the kidneys -- but it is also produced by white blood cells during inflammatory conditions -- autoimmune disease and heart disease are inflammatory conditions.

Magnesium deficiency and/or excess intake of calcium may be involved for some individuals. Zinc and B vitamins are also essential as cofactors for converting between the active and inactive forms of vitamin D so malnutrition in general may increase people's susceptibility to an intracellular infection. Medical marijuana is also a controversial topic because the plant is categorized as not having medical uses at the federal level but within the healthy body different types of cannabinoids are made for use within membranes and as messenger chemicals. Genetic defects, older age, or malnutrition may prevent some individuals from making the cannabinoids internally. Hemp and some other foods in addition to the marijuana plant also can be an external source of cannabinoids but the amount and types produced may depend somewhat on the fertility of the soil.

I have tried to share this information because it could help improve health and quality of life for many people and reduce the amount of money and supplies being used for ineffective health care. We can't afford health care that might be making individuals worse and may be spreading disease within contaminated blood, organs, or through procedures and screening tools that don't recognize that more conditions may be contagious through blood-borne routes than was previously recognized.

While I do not have a PhD I do have a Bachelor's Degree in Administrative and Clinical Dietetics and fifteen years of public health education experience. Selling products at a profit is not something I have experience at, giving away free health information, possibly along with a motivating freebie as an incentive, is where I do have professional experience.

Another famous quote has been a motivating force for me since I first got concerned about the controversy over vitamin D in 2010:

"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country." - President John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961 [9]

So, my fellow Americans and any other readers: chances are if you don't have rickets and do use some dairy products and breakfast cereals regularly, then you probably don't have a deficiency of vitamin D but if your levels are below 20 nmol/L then you may have an intra-cellular infection. The possibility of an infection might seem like bad news but it is more informative than "We don't know what causes your disease or how to cure it but we would love for you to take our side-effect inducing medications until you die or until we find a cure, whichever comes first, thanks so much for being a good sport about it in the meantime."

And the good news would be that the olmesartan/Benicar and antibiotic protocol might be an effective treatment for the underlying cause if an intracellular pathogen was involved in your symptoms. At this stage of research it is not the standard treatment that a general practitioner would be likely to have heard of let alone recommend, but you can look into the protocol and talk to your physician about it yourself. The Marshall Protocol Knowledge Base provides information for patients and for physicians regarding the science behind the protocol and provides guidance for the patient and for the prescribing physician regarding prescriptions, timing of doses, side effects to watch for and other precautions.

Personally I was thrilled to get rid of my severe migraine problem with the use of olmesartan, antibiotics, and avoiding vitamin D foods and supplements and avoiding much time spent in bright sunlight -- it wasn't easy but the migraines were much worse. I was on the medication protocol for a year and half and had been having weekly migraines for over a decade -- I was more than thrilled for myself I was thrilled for everyone else who might have migraines or might be tired of hearing "we don't know what causes your autoimmune disease or how to cure it." Migraines aren't autoimmune disease but they can be a symptom of other conditions and more recently I have been diagnosed with autoimmune thyroid disease which can go back and forth between hypo- and hyper- phases for some patients.

More research is needed but a lot of research has occurred if you're willing to go read more about it yourself. [mpkb.org]

Tangent: I've tried to share this information in the past because I believe it is necessary for public health and economic health and environmental health. Medications that have harsh side effects on human health are also likely to have harsh side effects on the environment. Anything we are pouring in our bodies or on our agricultural fields is likely to eventually reach the ground water supply or the ocean where increasing acidity is already beginning to affect the ability of shellfish to form shells - the shell material dissolves in higher acidity.

And so, my fellow Americans: Yes, I had a Presidential campaign website in 2012 because I was as serious as a heart attack about my fears regarding our nation's health and our food supply. The nutrient guidelines are used to make meals and formulas for people who may be incapable of eating to appetite. If the guidelines are not correct than the meals and formula nutrient balance may lead to chronic nutrient deficiencies. All the nutrients work together somewhat so research that only looks at vitamin D alone or calcium alone may be missing deficiencies of magnesium or zinc or B vitamins or cannabinoids. Our government is responsible for meals for the military and for school children and people living in residential facilities who are on Medicaid or Medicare and for prisoners. the government doesn't directly set nutrient guidelines but could probably fund research if the elected officials were working towards that goal.

I never claimed to be experienced in politics and there would be little point in my trying to get involved at the local level because nutrient and medical policies are made at the federal level and may be implemented at federal, state and local levels. My credibility and reputation have suffered some setbacks since I started writing online in 2010 but there is unlikely to be another person available who has had my combination of personal and professional health experiences -- and so, my fellow Americans: if there are any of you who would like to vote for me in 2016 for President of the United States then I would do my best if elected to help our country become a healthier country which would likely help make it a wealthier country as well.

My campaign slogan was also serious: "A vote for me is probably a bad idea, but a vote for magnesium is a good idea." I was trying to be clear that I know that I'm not a good role model for normal social skills or skilled at political networking and fundraising, but that I firmly believe that my nutrition platform is very important for the long term economic and physiologic health of our nation. Whether I'm married or divorced,* or how wealthy or broke I am, would probably not make any difference to a person suffering from Crohn's Disease or ALS or RA or TB or sarcoidosis or HIV/AIDS.

So I'll get FEC Form 2 filed before I receive $5000 in campaign contributions or within the next 15 days, whichever comes first. ;-) That is an attempt at humor - I don't expect to raise $5000 in contributions. The other reason that I ran for office was in protest of the Citizens United decision, so I was running as a write-in candidate in 2012 and hadn't been aware of FEC Form 2 -- I think voters should be able to vote for someone who isn't underwritten by corporations and billionaires.

*I'll let you know if my name changes again before Nov. 2016. I'm hitting Publish - with my fingers crossed that it works, but I also made a copy just in case. *The website's software was due for an update -- note to self: always update software as soon as prompted.

/Update: I didn't fill out the FEC Form 2 or FEC Form 1 which I learned of once I started reading the instructions. The forms are only required if a candidate's campaign expenditures or donations are reaching or exceeding $5000. I wrote more about this topic:

• "What’s a chad? or Confession is said to be good for the soul" August 24, 2015.

• "Secretary of Health and Human Services, an additional note, and Fringe Topic: Parvo Virus" August 31, 2015.

Caring a lot is important but so is experience and good health and I have limited supplies of both of those - I will continue to care and will post updates on health or other topics as I learn more.

/Disclosure: This information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use. While I am a Registered Dietitian this information is not intended to provide individual health guidance. Please see a health professional for individual health care purposes./