Posted on 02/19/2011 9:00:49 PM PST by Seizethecarp
The debate over what XMRV may do to humans continues. But at least in a small group of monkeys, one thing is clear, according to a new study.
“The virus causes chronic, persistent infection,” says Robert Silverman of the Cleveland Clinic, a co-author of the paper, which was published online yesterday in the Journal of Virology. Moreover, the new research suggests that in these monkeys, at least, the virus can be difficult to detect in blood, even though it’s taken root in the body.
This is a tantalizing finding because it raises the prospect that someone could be infected with XMRV but show no clinical symptoms of disease until years, possibly decades, later.
The study involved five macaque monkeys who were infected intravenously with XMRV.
The new monkey study illustrated some of the challenges that continue to perplex scientists. The animals showed signs of the virus in their blood right after being infected, but very soon afterward, those signs disappeared, making detection very tough. When monkeys were autopsied, however, organs including the spleen, lungs, and prostate contained XMRV-infected cells.
Klein, who specializes in prostate cancer, tells the Health Blog that the study showed that the gland is a “early target for XMRV,” which sets up a “genuine chronic infection” within a week. He adds that that this finding does not prove that XMRV causes prostate cancer, but it does raise important questions about the long-term consequences of XMRV infection.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
This paper proves that a human retrovirus extracted from human prostate and associated with ME/CFS can infect a closely related primate quickly and extensively throughout the body while being barely detectable in the blood. While it isn't yet proved that XMRV "causes" ME/CFS, the association is validated by this study and you can't cure a retrovirus with talk therapy and exercise.
The comments to the WSJ article from many grateful ME/CFS patients are very informative.
oh the monkey wrapped its tail around the flagpole
These must be Signifying Monkeys......
Guess those african bruthas will just have to quit pokin em.
Nothing particularly surprising about this, as a handful of viruses are known to set up long term residence in the body, emerging years later, if at all.
Importantly, blood tests generally do not look for viruses themselves, but antibodies that exist to combat a particular virus. And this is not just limited to viruses, but several pathogenic bacteria as well. The human GI tract contains sub-critical numbers of many such pathogens with just minimal immune response to them. That is, the body lets them live, so it will remember what they are and how to fight them.
Perhaps the three most noteworthy viral long term inhabitants are Herpes Zoster, which causes chickenpox, but then stays hidden for decades to sometimes emerge as Shingles in later years; Polio, which haunts its victims, emerging late in life to cause them even more grief, after years of inactivity; and Herpes Simplex type 1, which is now associated with later coronary artery disease.
Some years ago the British made the odd discovery that for at least the common cold, the feet act as a primary repository for the virus. They were attempting to disprove an “old wives tale” about cold, damp feet causing colds, by having healthy volunteers immerse their feet in cold water for a length of time. But much to their surprise, a number of them, too great to explain by the placebo effect, came down with clinical colds.
The cold water reduces the circulation in the feet, and somehow this signals the viruses waiting down there to reemerge.
It should be noted that what people are assuming are the symptoms of the virus are actually symptoms of the immune response to the virus. Were it not for this immune response, most likely we would not suspect we had a cold.
I disagree for this reason: XMRV is a retrovirus.
XMRV is only the third retrovirus discovered to infect humans. HIV and HTLV are the only other two.
As a retrovirus, XMRV doesn't just “take up residence in the body” where a “normal” non-retrovirus can be a attacked and cleared by the immune system in a healthy person. XMRV integrates itself into the genome of the infected areas (both blood and organ tissue) and into the germ-line sexual reproductive cells so that it will be passed on to the next generation.
In one of the top CFS clinics in the USA a family study shows (implicates...not yet proved) transmission of XMRV genetic infection from CFS parents to children who express the XMRV as autism.
While the human body can damp down XMRV in the blood to a great extent, CFS patients have recently been banned from donating blood due to fear that the world blood supply has been tainted by this retrovirus.
The other two retroviruses, HIV and HTLV in humans and other gamma retroviruses (that is the XMRV type) in animals produce cancers and neuroimmune dysfunction. In humans XMRV is already associated with prostate cancer and a type of leukemia.
While currently there are only four retroviruses known to infect humans: HTLV1, HTLV2, HIV1 and HIV2 (so XMRV would be the fifith), two percent of the human genome is made up of endogenous retroviral sequences. This indicates that there are a huge number of retroviruses that have infected us in the past.
We also know that Simian Retrovirus can infect humans in vitro, but there are no known cases of people suffering from an infection of SRV, which does not mean there are not any out there.
But my comparison, in general terms, is still valid. Whether a virus survives in some nook and cranny in our body, or survives within our cells, there are a large number known to do this. Even some bacteria hide out for a while, like untreated gonorrhea.
Does anybody know what is most effective for treating cfs?
See this link for the best information, IMO
http://www.cfids.org/xmrv/default.asp
This is a good link, too:
http://forums.aboutmecfs.org/content.php?4-XMRV-CFS-ME-CFS-phoenix-rising
Thanks, I’ll check out the links.
I feel that while we are trying to find out what causes CFS, it would be great to find out what helps most folks.
When I tried fresh garlic that seemed to help. I’ll have to try it again.
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