0 Babesiosis Fatality In Australia

Earlier this week, the Australian television show Today Tonight aired a story about a 56 year old man from New South Wales who died from Babesiosis. There is some concern by others that the man contracted the infection within Australia and not overseas, though more evidence is needed this is the case.

Babesiosis is a tickborne illness caused by a protozoan parasite, Babesia, which infects red blood cells and produces symptoms which are similar to those found in malaria. It can be subclinical and cause no to mild symptoms - but it can also lead to moderate and severe symptoms. And sadly, as we've seen - even kill people.

People who are most likely to have severe symptoms are the elderly, those with compromised immune systems, and those who do not have a spleen.

I know firsthand what Babesiosis is like because several months after I was bitten by a tick, new symptoms showed up in me which were indicative of an infection with Babesia. I also was fortunate to get a positive blood smear - not something which is easily accomplished in the lab.

The most obvious symptoms I experienced were an ongoing shortness of breath with the sensation of a vice-like grip around my ribs, breaking out into sweats at night, "flash" fevers, and anemia. There were other less known symptoms as well, but these are among the most common. Fortunately, I think (I hope) I have beat this coinfection, and it has not beat me.

As it stands, the United States has seen a number of its own deaths due to Babesia, and according to an article in the New York Times, in coastal Rhode Island, the number of cases of Babesia are around 25% less than those of Lyme disease - in an area which is highly endemic for Lyme disease. And not only is Babesia becoming quite common in northeastern states - it's spreading to the northern midwest as well and was already found on the west coast.

One important thing to be aware of is not only can Babesia be transmitted by ticks - it can be spread through the blood supply via donations and transfusions. Thus far, there are twelve people who have died from Babesia spread through blood transfusions in the US. It is unknown, though, how many people may have been infected with Babesia through the blood supply and currently carry a more subclinical infection that may become more evident later.

There is currently no blood screening test available for donations and transfusions, and research is underway to develop such a test to avoid spreading more Babesia through the blood supply. So I highly recommend that if you have to get surgery and know this in advance, that you blood bank your own blood in preparation in case you need a transfusion.

You can view the dramatic video of the Today Tonight story here [4:46 minutes, plus short ad]:

Read this link for a full transcript of the show:

http://au.news.yahoo.com/today-tonight/latest/article/-/13207421/tick-timebomb/

For more information about Babesia and Babesiosis, check out these links:

Specific to Australia: http://lymedisease.org.au/about-lyme-disease/babesiosis/

About the Lifecycle: http://www.stanford.edu/group/parasites/ParaSites2006/Babesiosis/lifecycle.html

About Treatment: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/780914-treatment

This work by Camp Other is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

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5 One way to treat Borrelia naturally?

Many Lyme disease patients have used antibiotics for treating Lyme disease and other tickborne coinfections. They have years of scientific study behind them and many reports of patient improvement come from doctors and specialists - patients have had a lot of success with them.

But sometimes antibiotic use leads to various side effects, digestive problems, and potentially, undesirable secondary infection with C. difficile. Using probiotics can often help with digestive problems and prevent C. difficile, but it is not guaranteed.

In some cases - due to allergies or intolerance of the side effects - patients have to stop antibiotic treatment. Because of this, patients have opted at some point in their treatment to stop taking antibiotics after a while and switch to alternative treatments such as herbs.

Whether a patient decides to use antibiotics or herbs, one thing on the horizon seems certain: Eventually antibiotic resistance will lead to more restrictive use of antibiotics, and antibiotic resistance may challenge patients' ability to treat some of their own infections.

However, there is one completely natural possibility that might treat Borrelia and some other tickborne infections in the future which is rarely mentioned in the west other than as a curiosity - yet everyone in the world is surrounded by this abundant and prosperous source of healing from nature all the time.

Much as there are different probiotic bacteria are found in yogurt and probiotic supplements that Lyme disease patients take -- there are viruses in our environment that are helpful to us.

A lot people think of a few things when they hear the word "virus": they think of H1N1 or the swine flu, colds, herpes, HIV, and meningitis, for a start. Not good things. But like the probiotic bacteria that we consume in yogurt all the time, viruses are also present in our environment - in our food, our soil, our drinking water, and our own digestive systems.

Like adding probiotic mixes to your yogurt, these helper viruses have been approved by the FDA to be sprayed on the surface of cheese across the US in order to prevent the development of the bacteria, Listeria monocytogenes, from causing serious disease in pregnant women,  immunocompromised people such as cancer patients, and those with immuno-deficiences. Thousands of people can be severely sickened by Listeria and in some cases even die. So the use of these viruses in food such as cheese is beneficial.

In addition to providing protection from harmful bacteria in food, these helpful viruses have also been used to help save baby calves from dying of diseases which cause severe diarrhea and prevent salmonella from colonizing chickens.

The method for treating these cases was find out which bacterial strains the animals were infected with in order to find the viruses which would eat them. Then use these viruses just as they are found in nature, with no genetic engineering required - put the viral material in pills, injections, or lotions in order to treat the infection.

So this leads one to wonder if this all-natural, non-GMO treatment which is low-cost compared to antibiotics and so abundant in nature can kill off bacterial infections in animals - why can't they kill off infections in people too?

Well, they can.

Watch the next two videos, paying special attention to the first video.


The first video is a 48 minute BBC documentary on the use of viruses to kill bacteria, also known as "bacteriophage therapy" in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, in the Eliava Institute of Tblisi.

Note that if the institute seems run down, filming was done after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the hospital just came out of a civil war - thus buildings had poor maintenance, but the technology to use bacteriophage therapy was in place and used. (After a period of economic instability and social problems - followed by the Rose Revolution - Georgia and Tblisi have been doing much better in the past several years.)

So this documentary is a little dated but general principles remain the same - it explains very well what bacteriophage therapy is and how it has been used in Europe for over 60 years through the 1990's (it continues to be used today - more on recent research using phages will be posted this week).

Youtube (3 parts)

BBC Horizon - 1997 - The Virus That Cures

This second video is from Canadian television as well as CBS news and is more recent - it contains two clips back to back about two people who were treated with phage therapy and their results. Don't miss it - the results are amazing when you realize the initial prognosis each patient was given.

Case studies on phage treatment plus Evergreen College, 

Washington State phage research - [Time: 9:26 minutes]

Is bacteriophage therapy this effective? Does it have any pitfalls? Why don't we hear more about it here yet, given the rising number of cases of antibiotic resistance to deadly bacteria such as MRSA? What can it treat so far? How can this treatment help Lyme disease patients in the future? Here's just one more video just to get a different angle on it from Australian news (Channel 7 and Channel 9). It talks more about history, plus business investments and projections for human trials...

The Forgotten Cure - on Sunday Sunrise, Channel 7 - 

plus a short clip on phages from Channel 9

More on this later this week - for now, check out the videos and let me know what you think, including your own questions and concerns about this kind of medical treatment. [CO note: Continue reading part two of this series, "Phage Therapy and Borrelia burgdorferi".]

This work by Camp Other is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

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8 The Friday Four

In this edition of the Friday Four, we'll look at using bacteria itself to deliver antibiotics and treat cancer, a huge touchscreen microscope, the value of Vitamin A in B1 cell immunity, and the mystery of lateral gene transfer between Chagas disease pathogens and its host.

1) 'Bacterial dirigibles' emerge as next-generation disease fighters

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110329134120.htm

Summary: ScienceDaily (2011-03-30) -- Scientists have developed bacteria that serve as mobile pharmaceutical factories, both producing disease-fighting substances and delivering the potentially life-saving cargo to diseased areas of the body. They reported on this new candidate for treating diseases ranging from food poisoning to cancer -- termed "bacterial dirigibles."

Comments:


I don't know how many people are aware how much genetic engineering already goes on. Once the industry took off... well, it took off like wildfire. It's pretty common to do exactly what is stated in this article: "...Traditional genetic engineering reprograms bacteria so that they produce antibiotics, insulin, and other medicines and materials. The bacteria grow in nutrient solutions in enormous stainless steel vats in factories. They release antibiotics or insulin into vats, and technicians harvest the medicine for processing and eventual use in people."


In this experiment, they programmed E. coli not to pump out antibiotics into a vat in some factory somewhere... No, they created a version of E. coli that could target a portion of the intestine and adhere to it, and begin sending out chemical signals that influenced the production of proteins in different cells around it.


So I'm trying to understand this. They took E. coli, the bacteria that often makes people sick, and made a version that delivers itself to a specific part of the body and is programmed to affect other cells near it. Crazy.


What if this sort of "bacterial dirigible" could seek out and find remote Borrelia burgdorferi in collagen-rich tissues, in the adventitia of the heart, and in the brain? Does this have potential for killing the remaining spirochetes that may survive the initial onslaught of antibiotics?


2) Researchers in Finland Build Giant Multitouch Microscope

This is just too cool.  I want one. I want to see my spirochetes on this sucker.  [Time 1:43]

I think Leeuwenhoek would have just about shit himself if he saw one of those...

3) In the absence of Vitamin A, the body loses immune cells that put the brakes on the earliest stages of infection

Link: http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-absence-vitamin-body-immune-cells.html

Summary: Scientists have recognized the immune-boosting capabilities of vitamin A for the better part of a century, even without fully understanding how it helps the body fight off bacteria and viruses. "Soon after its discovery, vitamin A was termed ‘the anti-infective vitamin’ and was widely used to enhance recovery; but with the introduction of antibiotics, the therapeutic use of vitamin A diminished," says Sidonia Fagarasan of the RIKEN Center for Allergy and Immunology in Yokohama, Japan.

Comments:


So these researchers fed these mice a Vitamin A-free diet, and when they did, the mice had lower levels of IgA and IgM. They were given pneumonia vaccines and produced zero response. And then, the researchers tried to transplant B1 cells from healthy mice to these deficient mice - only to find that the B1 cells deteriorated, didn't last that long, and died off over several days.


However, the good news is, they found out the stem cells in the deficient mice's bone marrow could give rise to B1 cells - but they wouldn't do it unless they had some Vitamin A.


The researchers found out that a transcription factor protein found in activated T cells (NFATc1), regulates expression of numerous important genes in B1 cells. The researchers observed reduced NFATc1 levels in the mice's deficient B1 cells, but found that expression could be largely restored if these mice were injected with ATRA, a product of cellular vitamin A metabolism. After this injection, B cells increased more than four fold in number in ten days.


Having a balanced diet is definitely important for the immune system, and being deficient in Vitamin A would be problematic. Something so simple.


Even though it sounds like a good idea to take lots of Vitamin A given the immune system benefit, it doesn't work that way: if you're deficient, you need more; if you're taking too much, you need less because it can damage your liver and by extension kidneys because of too much calcium there. (It's also bad to consume high quantities during pregnancy - it can lead to failure to thrive in newborns.)


So get a test to see if you're deficient in Vitamin A first - and if so, then it's pretty easy to find foods full of  Vitamin A.


One thing that comes to mind after reading this is that recently I've read a paper, 'The Important And Diverse Roles of Antibodies in Host Response to Borrelia' by Laroca and Benach. In it, it mentions that B1 cell or x-linked immunodeficiency leads to more severe spirochetemia with B. hermsii... B1 b cells are needed for IgM antibody response.

Source publication:

Maruya, M., Suzuki, et al. Vitamin A-dependent transcriptional activation of the nuclear factor of activated T cells c1 (NFATc1) is critical for the development and survival of B1 cells. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 108, 722–727 (2011). http://www.pnas.org/content/108/2/722.short

4) Two new studies seek to validate the results of a retracted 2004 paper on parasite-to-host gene transfer, but skepticism lingers

Link: http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/58093/

Do not let this bug kiss you - it can
carry Chagas disease parasites...

Summary: The microparasite that causes Chagas disease really can integrate bits of its genetic material into its host's genome, where it can then be inherited by the host's offspring, according to two studies published in PLoS ONE and PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases (PLoS NTD).

Comments:


So this is kind of insane. Interesting and insane. The claim is being made for what might be the first documented instance of lateral gene transfer from the parasite that causes Chagas disease to not only its host but also a following vertical transfer to the host's offspring.


WTF. This is almost as far out as Lynn Margulis' claims about Borrelia burgdorferi.


These two recent studies are supposed to confirm the research found in a 2004 paper published in Cell which was later retracted. That paper showed - or supposedly showed - that University of Brasilia researchers found that T. cruzi could transfer genetic material to its rabbit, chicken, and human hosts. This sort of gene transfer - specifically of mitochondrial kinetoplast DNA (kDNA) - may contribute to the disease by disrupting host gene function and causing an autoimmune response.


Those looking at the newer research are eyeing it cautiously because of the earlier publication's retraction, which was done because Cell's staff made the determination that certain important information was missing from the paper. Speculation was that it was because identification and analysis of the specific sites of DNA integration were omitted.


I think this study and the two subsequent studies recently done will need to be repeated by another party not related to them, since this would be pretty big news if it's true. Also, someone needs to make sure their PCR methods don't create weird chimeras in passing.

Source publications:

M.M. Hecht et al., "Inheritance of DNA transferred from American trypanosomes to human hosts," PLoS ONE, 5: e918, 2010. 

A.R.L. Teixeira et al., "Trypanosoma cruzi in the chicken model: Chagas-like heart disease in the absence of parasitism," PLoS Negl Trop Dism, 5: e1000, 2011. 

---

And here's a bonus link set for my readers who are interested in aberrant and unusual contrails in the sky:

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v1/n1/full/nclimate1078.html

Here is the study to which the above article refers:

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v1/n1/full/nclimate1068.html

It was posted at the source on March 29, so I reassure you that it was not an April Fool news item.

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0 The Friday Four

Bringing you four links on Friday you may be interested in and don't want to miss...

1. Takes a licking, keeps on ticking... that's the story of ticks in your washer and dryer.
   
   
   
   
   Okay, I know this isn't news, but it may be to someone and because it is important, I am reposting it here:
   
   Wash and dry clothes at HIGH temperatures after spending time in areas known to harbor ticks.
   
   If you can get clothes that can withstand an hour of being in a dryer on a high temperature setting - all the better.
   
   
   Excerpts from this research include:
   

   "Carroll used a combination of water temperature settings and detergent types to wash the ticks. The majority of lone star ticks survived all the water-detergent combinations with no obvious side effects. Most of the deer ticks lived through the cold and warm water settings as well. But when one type of detergent was used with a hot water setting, only 25 percent of the deer ticks survived.
   
   When it came time to dry, all the ticks of both species died after an hour of tumbling around at high heat. But when the dryer was set to "no heat," about one-third of the deer ticks and more than half of the lone star ticks survived."

2. I know an old lady who swallowed a fly... I don't know why she swallowed that fly... perhaps she'll die?  Hope not.
   
   

   

   Leishmania

   So as the story goes - or this particular variation of it - that sand fly had Leishmania infection, and get this? The Leishmania parasite was also infected with a virus that can trigger a severe response in macrophages, allowing the parasite to do more harm in animal infections
   
   
   
   In humans, the parasite's viral infection may be why some strains of Leishmania in Central and South America tend to cause a disfiguring form of disease that erodes the soft tissues around the nose and mouth
   
   
   How often does this sort of infectious piggybacking go on? This brings more issues to light when discussing polymicrobialism. 
   
   
   We just don't know how all these organisms are interacting - or even that they are there.
   
   
3. On the other hand... Maybe you should hold off on that parasite cleanse. Do you have abdominal pain or symptoms of IBS, celiac disease, MS, asthma, or food allergies? Thinking of doing a parasite cleanse? You may just want to hold off on that cleanse, depending on what is bugging you: Research is being done on the benefits of certain parasites in human hosts with the above conditions.
   
   
   
   The treatment used is called Helminthic therapy, where patients are inoculated with specific intestinal parasitic nematodes and monitored for improvements in their conditions.
   
   Helminthic therapy is based on the hygeine hypothesis. The hygiene hypothesis proposes that appropriate immune response is in part learned by exposure to these microorganisms and parasites, and in part regulated by their presence. In industrialised nations, humans are exposed to somewhat lower levels of these organisms. The development of vaccines, hygienic practices, and effective medical care have diminished or eliminated the prevalence and impact of many parasitic organisms, as well as bacterial and viral infections. This has been of obvious benefit with the effective eradication of many diseases that have plagued human beings. However, while many severe diseases have been eradicated, humans' exposure to benign and apparently beneficial parasites has also been reduced commensurately.
   
   
4. Women with anemia - low iron levels - need to know this.  Dr. Kathryn Clancy writes a blog with informative medical information in it, and this recent post is no exception.
   
   Remember the old saw about how women have lower iron levels than men and are more likely to have anemia due to menstruation? Well, it looks like bunk. 

Red blood cells (RBC) and hemoglobin (Hg) are positively correlated
with endometrial thickness (from Clancy et al 2006). Click for a closer look.

Dr. Clancy sites studies stating the following:

• The sex difference in iron status in males and females derives from an increase in male iron stores at puberty, not a decrease in female iron stores. This has to do with oxygen transport and testosterone (Bergstrom et al 1995).
  
  
• The main culprit for iron-deficiency anemia (IDA) in men is upper-gastrointestinal bleeding, so when men present with IDA the first thing they do is an endoscopy. When women present with IDA they give her iron supplements and tell her to go home because it's just her ladybusiness. Kepczyk et al (1999) decided to actually do endoscopies on women for whom a gynecological source was diagnosed by a specialist for their IDA. They found a whopping eighty-six percent of these women had a gastrointestinal disease that was likely causing their IDA.
  
  
• Resumption of menses after pregnancy is positively associated with hemoglobin. That iron stores increase once you start getting your period again, indicate again that menses is not having a negative effect on iron stores.

The good doctor's advice to women?

"Ladies, unless you are menorrhagic (bleeding more than 120 milliliters each cycle) your period is not doing you wrong. If you have iron-deficiency anemia and your doctor is insisting it's because you slough off your endometrium from time to time without doing a single test to confirm it, you may want to insist on an endoscopy. It could save your life."

Have a good weekend, readers... I am still working on my post-dated citations, so expect to see more posts in the meantime before that list is published.

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