Could Milk and Dairy cause Cancer?

Here is an heretic idea: Could the consumption of (pasteurized) cow milk and dairy cause some forms of cancer? Specifically: breast cancer?

Well, this is pure speculation – yet an epidemiologist worth his/her salary should have no problem confirming or refuting this idea.

I just leave this idea here, so I can say in 30 years: "Told you so."

IgM and IgG Seronegative Q Fever: A Hypothesis for Veterans? Medically Unexplained Chronic Multi-symptom Illnesses.

Immunoglobulin M and Immunoglobulin G Seronegative Q Fever: A Hypothesis for Veterans? Medically Unexplained Chronic Multi-symptom Illnesses.

Chagaris MJ, Smith RC, Goldstein AL.

J Spec Oper Med. 2012 Spring;12(1):37-48.

Abstract
We present Q fever as a credible hypothesis for Gulf War Veterans Illnesses (GWVIs) and as a possible etiology for prevalent symptomologies affecting currently serving servicemembers.

Q fever is caused by the bacteria Coxiella burnetii, which is endemic throughout the Middle East. Q fever may manifest in many forms of widely varying and often inconstant symptoms. Due to false-negative interpretations in current and past diagnostic testing, Q fever has not received appropriate consideration as a possible causative agent for medically unexplained veterans illnesses.

Review of current literature invites us to consider that a form of Q fever involving an incomplete immune response is a potential cause of these debilitating illnesses.

We hypothesize C. burnetii infection coincidental to exposures suppressing antibody-specific immune response results in infection mediated by immunoglobulin D (IgD). Literature indicates that successful treatment for this form of Q fever requires the concurrent administration of doxycycline and hydroxychloroquine.

Well, it is a hypothesis – without any evidence, it seems.

Usually at the acute phase of an infection you get an IgM titer increase, and after the acute phase the IgM titers level off. And an IgG titer increase follows that, usually persistent for life, even when the pathogen is long gone ("Adaptive Immune System"). So it is intruging that IgD titers might be raised and not IgM or IgG – but where is the evidence?

Because, I've seen this before and I bloody hate it: These f*cking "out of the blue" hypothesis without any evidence. Stupid quacks who write things like "Oh, CFS could be an allergy to an pathogen" without any shroud of evidence for their quack hypothesis. Is it too much to ask that they do some minimal testing for their hypothesis and supply at least some results – before publishing?

"The phenomenon of 'chronic Lyme'; an observational study."

The phenomenon of 'chronic Lyme'; an observational study.
Ljøstad U, Mygland A.

Department of Neurology, Sørlandet Hospital, Kristiansand, Norway Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway Department of Habilitation, Sørlandet Hospital, Kristiansand, Norway

Abstract

Purposes:
To chart clinical, laboratory, and psychometric profiles in patients who attribute their complaints to chronic Lyme disease.

Methods:
We assessed the patients by clinical examination, laboratory tests, and questionnaires measuring fatigue, depression, anxiety, health-related quality of life, hypochondriasis, and illness perceptions.

Results:
We found no evidence of ongoing Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb) infection in any of the 29 included patients using current diagnostic guidelines and an extended array of tests.

Eight (28%) had other well-defined illnesses.

Twenty-one (72%) had symptoms of unknown cause, of those six met the suggested criteria for post-Lyme disease syndrome.

Fourteen (48%) had presence of anti-Bb antibodies.

The patients had more fatigue and poorer health-related quality of life as compared to normative data, but were not more depressed, anxious, or hypochondriacal.

Their beliefs about the illness were characterized by negative expectations.

Conclusion:
Our patients, who all attributed their symptoms to chronic Lyme disease, were heterogeneous.

None had evidences of persistent Bb infection, but whether current diagnostic criteria are functional in patients with longstanding complaints is controversial.

Other well-defined illnesses or sequelae from earlier Lyme disease were probable as main explanatory factor in some cases.

The patients were not more depressed, anxious, or hypochondriacal than the normal population, but they had poorer health-related quality of life, more fatigue, and negative expectations about their illness.

Unforutnatly only the abstract is available. The other "well-defined illnesses" would be interesting to collect.

And about half(!) of the patients who were seen by these doctors supposedly with "chronic Lyme" did actually not have anti-bodies against Borrelia Burgdorferi - and none had evidences of persistent infection! There are certainly some Quacks out there diagnosing people with "Chronic Lyme". And only "six met the suggested criteria for post-Lyme disease syndrome".

To Do list for Ampgligen

Show credible evidence of Ampligen’s efficacy using expanded studies that are at least six months long

Show that Ampligen is safe; ie that it does not cause autoimmune disorders or heart problems (prolonged qt intervals)

Produce studies in which patients are on more than one dose regimen

Produce studies in which at least 300 patients are on doses intended for the market

Follow the FDA’s ‘recommendation’ that rodent studies be done to examine carcinogenicity

Provide additional data on quality control issues

Fix Inspection issues at one of Ampligen’s facilities

http://phoenixrising.me/archives/8819

Is health-care a medical or a social problem?

The savage cuts to Greece's health service budget have led to a sharp rise in HIV/Aids and malaria in the beleaguered nation, said a leading aid organisation on Thursday.

The incidence of HIV/Aids among intravenous drug users in central Athens soared by 1,250% in the first 10 months of 2011 compared with the same period the previous year, according to the head of Médecins sans Frontières Greece, while malaria is becoming endemic in the south for the first time since the rule of the colonels, which ended in the 1970s.

Reveka Papadopoulos said that following health service cuts, including heavy job losses and a 40% reduction in funding for hospitals, Greek social services were "under very severe strain, if not in a state of breakdown. What we are seeing are very clear indicators of a system that cannot cope". The heavy, horizontal and "blind" budget cuts coincided last year with a 24% increase in demand for hospital services, she said, "largely because people could simply no longer afford private healthcare. The entire system is deteriorating".

It seems to me that access to health-care is the primary determinant for the quality of health-care – the biggest improvement for a health-care system is making sure all people have access.

The Darwinian "Units of Selection" are not aware of what they do

One of the most important lessons from evolution is that the Units of Selection (which are genes, by the way, not individual living beings) are not aware of what they do. There is no watchmaker (not even a blind watchmaker), no grand master plan. The units of selection don't "do it" for their benefit – it is the other way round, the units of selection that do something that is beneficial for them (in a given environment) are "rewarded".

So, does anybody need to know whether what he is doing is beneficial for him – or for someone else? Does a president need to know for whom (and how) it will be beneficial, if he invades another country in the name of his king, in the name of his religion or in the name of his nation? Does a professor for economy, a journalist or a politician need to know who benefits (beside himself) when he advocates the benefits of the invisible hand of the free market? And do patients who advocate for quack cures need to know to whom (and how) it is beneficial, if they advocate quack treatments? And does the quack need to know that only he will benefit of this quack cures?

No.

If anything, evolution teaches us that there can be a conspiracy without a conspirer. That a few are benefiting and many are harmed "can happen", without someone planing it knowingly. It would be interesting to dissect the mechanisms in each individual case – alas, I'm afraid that is beyond the scope of my feeble blog and left therefore as an exercise for the inclined reader. :-)


(That is not to say that all conspiracies have no conspirers who halfway know what they do – plenty of examples of that in history.)

iPOP (integrative personal omics profile) – tracking proteins, metabolites, metabolism, microRNAs, cytokines, antibodies, and gene transcripts in one person

Michael Snyder tracks his health status with iPOP and finds a virus causing his Type 2 Diabetes (T2DM)?

Snyder had a cold at the first blood draw, which allowed the researchers to track how a rhinovirus infection alters the human body in perhaps more detail than ever before. The initial sequencing of his genome had also showed that he had an increased risk for type 2 diabetes, but he initially paid that little heed because he did not know anyone in his family who had had the disease and he himself was not overweight. Still he and his team decided to closely monitor biomarkers associated with the diabetes, including insulin and glucose pathways. The scientist later became infected with respiratory syncytial virus, and his group saw that a sharp rise in glucose levels followed almost immediately. "We weren't expecting that," Snyder says. "I went to get a very fancy glucose metabolism test at Stanford and the woman looked at me and said, 'There's no way you have diabetes.' I said, 'I know that's true, but my genome says something funny here.' "

So much for "These people eat too much."

Topol writes in an e-mail, "this type of 'pan-ar-omic' study of individuals is now not only feasible but in select individuals with medical conditions, particularly useful clinically."

We'll have to wait until this will be used more often in research, and then it will take some considerable time, but it will reach clinical use some time, maybe in the next decade.

Read it all.

[Update] Here's another blog post about this.