Re: Viruses and Health of the Brain

[Guest guest]

See my post a couple days ago possibly linking brain cancer to CMV (another herpesvirus), again, which most people have and which is usually harmless. One big question is why does the virus reactivate - I think compromised immune systems, and possibly a weakened blood-brain barrier. I'm starting to wonder whether that is why we have so much more general mental illness (depression, anxiety, etc) now than 20-30 years ago - could it be due to generally worse biological health in the brain, caused by weakening blood-brain barriers (influenced by metal toxicity, BPA, other environmental toxins, EMF <??>, etc) I've done no detailed research, so perhaps we don't actually have more illness - just better awareness - but it seems like there is more. My general idea is that what we call "mental health" is basically a reflection of the biological health of the brain as an organ, and that evolution has evolved to keep the health of the brain and that of the organism as a whole basically separate. The peripheral body can get sick, get viruses, whatever - and often does. But normally the BBB will keep them out of the brain, normally peripheral immune activation won't cause (too much) activation of the neural immune system, etc. But now, with all the toxicity we have, from metals and other things, the blood-brain barrier is weakening, which makes the brain more susceptible to the same kinds of maladies as the body. So we get more viruses getting into the brain (which may still be latent, but latent viruses can reactivate - quite often it seems) and possibly other generally bad stuff (lyme spirochetes, mycoplamas, other parasites). I also wonder if the BBB normally keeps peripheral immune cytokines out of the brain (mostly), and if that ability is being compromised - that would lead to more general "sickness behavior" - if not actual "brain sickness", as that's what cytokines seem to do in the brain. It may also be that the neural immune system normally has a damped reaction to peripheral cytokines, which is now magnified for whatever reason (it's not clear whether for instance brain-acting IL-1 is actually peripheral or is endogenously generated for example). Nutrient depletion might also factor into this a lot, as I read somewhere that zinc has a very crucial role in maintaining the BBB. A parallel hypothesis (that seems more "out there") is that the body has also evolved to essentially conserve nutrient levels in the brain, to the detriment of the body - when there is a shortage. Meaning the brain will get enough zinc, but perhaps nothing else will. If this is true, it would work to keep the brain's functioning stable. But in a case of severe nutrient depletion, or possibly other conditions of the modern diet such as the inversion of sodium/potassium ratio, general acidity of the diet, etc - this starts to break down too. There should be a limit to how far this could go - the organism cannot deprive the "non-brain" of too much nutrients or the entire organism sufferers (and dies before reproduction, thus putting a genetic limit on how far the nutrient depletion of the body can go). So under severe nutrient depletion or modern dietary conditions (which may functionally create "severe" depletion of certain nutrients - such as potassium perhaps in the case of the Na/K inversion), the brain is eventually going to get deprived of things. If this second hypothesis is true (and the first I suppose) - I wonder if this proposed natural mechanism for "keeping the brain healthy, the rest be damned" naturally starts to break down with old age (natural selection has no direct way to control what goes on after reproductive age)? This could partly explain why we have so much elderly dementia/Alzheimer's/other-elderly-mental-illness-(?) than before - if indeed we do (a counter argument is that we never lived long enough to see a large Alzheimer's population). Of course, with this "pre-Alzheimer's" that they're starting to see (at a rate of 4x in men.. Anybody say late-onset neurological autism?), perhaps if is a "natural breakdown" of this proposed system at say age 85 or 95 - today because of toxicity we're lowering that down to say only 60 or 70.Jimhi.. so... over 90% of the human population has the herpes virus simplex 1... so this means we have many of those having to die from alzheimers? I have had 4 outbreaks in my life.. am I destined? my mom has alzheimers.. early stages.. she came down with shingles last spring... she was dx last december.. officially... Lia

[Guest guest]

jim, your messages come out all bluuuuur

Re: Viruses and Health of the Brain

See my post a couple days ago possibly linking brain cancer to CMV (another herpesvirus), again, which most people have and which is usually harmless. One big question is why does the virus reactivate - I think compromised immune systems, and possibly a weakened blood-brain barrier.

I'm starting to wonder whether that is why we have so much more general mental illness (depression, anxiety, etc) now than 20-30 years ago - could it be due to generally worse biological health in the brain, caused by weakening blood-brain barriers (influenced by metal toxicity, BPA, other environmental toxins, EMF <??>, etc) I've done no detailed research, so perhaps we don't actually have more illness - just better awareness - but it seems like there is more.

My general idea is that what we call "mental health" is basically a reflection of the biological health of the brain as an organ, and that evolution has evolved to keep the health of the brain and that of the organism as a whole basically separate. The peripheral body can get sick, get viruses, whatever - and often does. But normally the BBB will keep them out of the brain, normally peripheral immune activation won't cause (too much) activation of the neural immune system, etc. But now, with all the toxicity we have, from metals and other things, the blood-brain barrier is weakening, which makes the brain more susceptible to the same kinds of maladies as the body. So we get more viruses getting into the brain (which may still be latent, but latent viruses can reactivate - quite often it seems) and possibly other generally bad stuff (lyme spirochetes, mycoplamas, other parasites). I also wonder if the BBB normally keeps peripheral immune cytokines out of the brain (mostly), and if that ability is being compromised - that would lead to more general "sickness behavior" - if not actual "brain sickness", as that's what cytokines seem to do in the brain. It may also be that the neural immune system normally has a damped reaction to peripheral cytokines, which is now magnified for whatever reason (it's not clear whether for instance brain-acting IL-1 is actually peripheral or is endogenously generated for example). Nutrient depletion might also factor into this a lot, as I read somewhere that zinc has a very crucial role in maintaining the BBB.

A parallel hypothesis (that seems more "out there") is that the body has also evolved to essentially conserve nutrient levels in the brain, to the detriment of the body - when there is a shortage. Meaning the brain will get enough zinc, but perhaps nothing else will. If this is true, it would work to keep the brain's functioning stable. But in a case of severe nutrient depletion, or possibly other conditions of the modern diet such as the inversion of sodium/potassium ratio, general acidity of the diet, etc - this starts to break down too. There should be a limit to how far this could go - the organism cannot deprive the "non-brain" of too much nutrients or the entire organism sufferers (and dies before reproduction, thus putting a genetic limit on how far the nutrient depletion of the body can go). So under severe nutrient depletion or modern dietary conditions (which may functionally create "severe" depletion of certain nutrients - such as potassium perhaps in the case of the Na/K inversion), the brain is eventually going to get deprived of things.

If this second hypothesis is true (and the first I suppose) - I wonder if this proposed natural mechanism for "keeping the brain healthy, the rest be damned" naturally starts to break down with old age (natural selection has no direct way to control what goes on after reproductive age)? This could partly explain why we have so much elderly dementia/Alzheimer's/other-elderly-mental-illness-(?) than before - if indeed we do (a counter argument is that we never lived long enough to see a large Alzheimer's population). Of course, with this "pre-Alzheimer's" that they're starting to see (at a rate of 4x in men.. Anybody say late-onset neurological autism?), perhaps if is a "natural breakdown" of this proposed system at say age 85 or 95 - today because of toxicity we're lowering that down to say only 60 or 70.

Jim

On Dec 20, 2008, at 8:56 AM, LFCostalasaol wrote:

hi.. so... over 90% of the human population has the herpes virus simplex 1... so this means we have many of those having to die from alzheimers? I have had 4 outbreaks in my life.. am I destined? my mom has alzheimers.. early stages.. she came down with shingles last spring... she was dx last december.. officially... Lia

[Guest guest]

Jim,

I read the messages directly from the EOH website and your text is

fully displayed; however, the text in your messages goes on forever

and ever horizontally – there doesn't seem to be a restricted line

length that your typed text is limited to. A reader has to use the

scroll arrow at the bottom of the page to fully view your messages.

I'm no computer geek – so I hope you get the gist of this message,

and that it helps you to figure out how to address the issue. I enjoy

reading your posts – so PLEASE try to fix this : )

> hi.. so... over 90% of the human population has the herpes

virus simplex 1... so this means we have many of those having to die

from alzheimers? I have had 4 outbreaks in my life.. am I destined?

my mom has alzheimers.. early stages.. she came down with shingles

last spring... she was dx last december.. officially... Lia

>