There are a group of doctors who study this topic intensely and have a lot of interesting hypothesis. They just get very minimal coverage and most people aren't aware they exist (a few are my friends). One of my long term project in the medical field has been to devise an economical approach for addressing these ailments.
Well I am incredibly intrigued to hear any ideas. I am sure you are aware I have CFS/M.E and there are many boxes left unticked on my bucket list that seem impossible today. But there is always hope for tomorrow.
The issue from my perspective is that I've never found a single thing that treats all CFS. What you need to do varies person to person (there are around 10 things I've seen work in different cases). The problem is that all the people who treat this get very wedded to one specific model and then will not use any other approach, so they help the people where their approach helps, but end up wasting a lot of resources for people where it doesn't help (and in some cases create iatrogenic complications).
From my perspective it is that everyone has a cure. It all costs money. None actually promise returns.
So I don't trust a lot anymore and follow a naturopathic approach which is free (saves me money actually) and has no potential of pharmaceutical complications (because I don't take any).
By limiting or minimizing oxidative stress, inflammation and fatigue. Good diet. Rest. Pacing. Avoiding things that use too much energy or are otherwise even slightly harmful. This is not a cure but helps manage the severity of my symptoms significantly.
But I am always open to accessible relatively low cost ideas.
Financial stress is still stress. Stress must be minimized for health to be maximized.
As someone with a mystery presumed autoimmune "disease" (actually it's a syndrome), MMN, I've been following pretty much the same philosophy as you.
There are too many opinions about what a "good" diet is, but in my case low-carb/high fat/no vegetable oil improved my health immensely, although it didn't reverse the neuropathy. I just try to reasonably follow an evolutionarily appropriate diet.
And NO pharmaceuticals. I'm still regretful that I succumbed to the first Covid vaccine propaganda, only so that my neighbors would trust me, but afterwards saw the light.
I'm glad you mentioned post-Lyme disease/chronic Lyme. With all the hoopla (and $$$) about Long Covid, chronic Lyme has been completely brushed aside, although it's been considered hypochondria in the official narrative anyway. I have good friends with chronic Lyme. I had an acute Lyme infection a few years ago and at the time learned how the CDC has its head up its butt with regard to testing, so I was predisposed to be skeptical of public health pronouncements anyway.
With the neuropathy diagnosis (in 2010) I started reading intensively about the immune system, which led into subcellular biochemistry, and long ago concluded that most problems are based in the mitochondria. Are you suggesting that the reverse transcription happens to the mitochondrial DNA? Or that alteration of the cellular DNA causes epigenetic changes that affect mitochondria? I'd be interested in more information about research into this.
Firstly I have to say thank you very much for your comment and sharing your perspective and also for the little questions at the end.
Regarding those questions. I think the most likely scenario is mutagenic action on the mitochondrial DNA. Which is less sheltered and protected than the DNA found in the cell nucleus. But this is purely a guess. I actually have no idea.
If you think of the mitochondria as a little engine. Like an engine, it needs a carburetor. Too much fuel and or air in the mix and complete combustion does not occur the engine either runs too rich, or too lean. I think something like this is occuring and so ATP and energy is not correctly being manufactured. Causing the cell to be "tired" and to perform poorly. This phenomena could explain the appearance of either immune suppression or over excitability. If this is occuring in those cells and tissues.
I have not entirely given up on the idea of epigenetics playing a part along with a "habit" developing within cells.
As in it may be possible cells themselves learn habits and express genes based on these habits they have learned. The only reason I think epigenetics is less likely than mutagenesis is the seemingly permanence of these syndromes.
Spontaneous recovery does however appear possible. It is also unlikely and uncommon. But because this does occur in some. Epigenetic habits could explain this. This makes more sense to me than a whole host of cells and tissues suddenly becoming mutated again but in all the right ways. Leading to remission. But again. I DON'T KNOW.
This is where it will become apparent to anyone reading that I am not a scientist. And so I am willing to throw out the scientific method for a moment and go commando. Because there are a number of intracellular processes that could be occurring. These are also incredibly difficult to study in detail. Because where you have epigenetic factors, you need an accurate and realistic environment. As the environment itself changes gene expression too changes. And how can we study living cells and their organelles in situe? Doing this type of study in vitro cannot work. As there is no way (to my knowledge) to mimic the complex environments occuring inside the body.
So both theories are probably possible. Even the third and least likely option that DNA in the nucleus could be the site of mutagenesis is still possible. I just think this is less likely than the other two theories. Because my gut told me so. So to be clear there is no scientific basis. Just a gut feeling.
My goal when writing and publishing this, was to find other minds to discuss the ideas in detail. More hands make light work. More minds too build or develop better ideas.
Revisiting an old thread! You said 'complete combustion does not occur the engine either runs too rich, or too lean'.
An overabundance of unnatural polyunsaturated fats — modern vegetable oils high in linoleic acid — does something along these lines. It doesn't properly create ROS (I forget if it's from Complex I or Complex III in the ETC), which in this case is a signaling molecule; this results in the proton gradient in the mitochondrion getting out of whack, and also messing up insulin signaling, another job of these ROS. ROS aren't all bad, and today's overemphasis on antioxidants, assuming they do anything at all, could be actually interfering in the signaling that is going on.
Two bloggers who frequently discuss this are Peter at Hyperlipid and Tucker Goodrich at Yelling Stop.
Also. Just like yourself. When I was diagnosed with CFS/ME in 2014. I also went down a similar path of learning and self taught education. I particularly looked into inflammation, cytokines, the microbiome and neurotransmitters including nootropics (the movie limitless sparked this). Then onto mitochondria and the immune system. Neuroplasticity and Psychoneuroimmunology and epigenetics.
I actually got quite lucky because the first book I ever read on this sort of topic was one I picked up at a second hand store (op shop) called "Sick and tired by Dr Nick Read" and covered briefly a lot of this and emerging field of functional medicine from the perspective of 2005. But beyond my army medic training and diploma in military medicine, this book was essentially my starting point.
The book was kind of brief and over simplified linking fatigue and various diseases to what Dr Read terms "sickness behavior" but this single theory still holds a lot of merit in my mind. It just doesn't explain in any detail why this occurs. He however muses over a heap pf possibilities. This ultimately lead me way further down the rabbit hole.
Thank you for saying this. Chronic or post Lyme syndrome ....I found one doctor who helped me enormously (but too late) and he was driven to retire. The state Dept of Health threatened him every day.
I think one day in the future, if we are successful in saving the babies yet to be born, and maybe some of the world 's existing populations, there will come a time and person who solves this...and people in the future will laugh at the appraoch taken now...and say weren't people barbaric? Like we look back at doctors using leeches for everything. And how horrible it was for the sufferers...like being a leper in the olden times.
As a long time patient with a horrifying medical history and treatments of all the awful stuff you have ever heard of, I would be VERY interested in what you are doing. I end up paying for both Medicare and my actual medical expenses out of my pocket, as I feel I need to keep basic insurance in case of injuries, but they will not pay for anything that is useful to me. They will happily pay for all the toxic meds I could eat, but I don't want any anymore, been there, done that, have the mental and physical scars.
I follow you on your substack too, please keep us informed!
Conway Judge: I am all of the above, or none of the above, no one can decide, we just all know I'm badly broken. Following you in your journey too, hoping you come up with things I can try. My sympathy, I wouldn't wish this on anyone, I always hate seeing people I like having these issues also.
I opted out of health care insurance a while back after I realized it never covered anything I needed, and in the occasional situations where it had something you might need, MD save often had it for a better rate than what you paid with insurance.
After reading this great post and all the comments I’m impressed by all the evolving knowledge. My own experience with myself and a son has been 25 years of AI disease & very toxic “treatment.” My “simplified” answer in hindsight is now to avoid all medical “help”, including that of cash milking naturopaths. My son and I now consent to see a trusted allergist for desensitization treatment & we remain wary of this too. We have become good at growing food, eating good diets, exercise, interacting with the natural world and honoring our own human interdependence through philosophy, spirit, language, music. I remain convinced it all goes way past individual and collective health straight through to recognizing our own intentions and those of others.
Hiya, first of all with my magic wand, I would stop using the military as pin cushions for rushed- to -market, experimental, neurotoxic, and unnecessary vaccines.
We seem to have forgotten the swine flu hoax of 2009. 50 million US citizens panicked by a pandemic that never materialised took a vaccine in good faith. 20-40% of them suffered severe illness, including paralysis, narcolepsy and death. The damages amounted to $2.7 billion.
Then as now the public don't know what's in vaccines. According to the German regulatory authority, instead of 5 micrograms maximum thiomersal (mercury containing) suddenly these vaccines contained 25 (5x as much). Mercury is the strongest non-radioactive poison. There is also aluminium (cell and nerve poison), formaldehyde (carcinogenic), polysorbate 80 (compromises gut and blood/brain barrier), squalene (made from endangered sharks and causes inflammation when injected and arthritis in animal models)
Once I've removed vaccines with my magic wand I am going to get fresh fruit and vegetable and legumes to everyone especially in the military (Bear Grylls has written on the poor processed meat based diet), this is essential if we actually care about the health of people but would also save money.
Very interesting on the spike, what is it and what does it do. Perhaps you can help
-. The ‘spike’ protein is said to have molecular weight of 78.3kDa (6) by some, others 180kDa and 90 KDa reflecting uncleaved and cleaved (7) and by others (8) between 486 and 493KDa which was larger than their expected 420kDa, based on the amino acid sequence, though it was thought to contain additional glycans. The spike has been claimed to be produced by cell cultures since the 1990’s (9), this time with an apparent monomer weight of 170- 230KDa. However big it is, it is not novel.
The proteins said to be the core proteins of HIV turned out to be polymers of cellular proteins for example in 1989 the “HIV” proteins p120 (thought to be the HIV knob/spike protein) and p160 were shown to be polymers of the p41/42 protein (which is the cellular protein actin)(10)
I thoroughly recommend Virus Mania by Engelbrecht and also What really makes you Ill by Dawn Lester and David Parker.
'The significant increase in all kinds of chronic diseases over the past few decades suggests that the population in industrialised countries is suffering from a growing glutathione (the master anti-oxidant) deficiency and/or a mitochondrial hypofunction, caused on the one hand by increasing exposure to more and more toxins and harmful radiation, and on the other hand by the supply of poor-quality food that contains less and less vital nutrients because it is produced using in industrial farming methods and on depleted soils.'
Glutathione levels are greatly increased by sulphur containing compounds found in garlic and herbs. Healthy sleep also regenerates glutathione reserves in the liver and increases melatonin, also a free-radical scavenger. Melatonin requires enough natural light in the day, vitamins and tryptophan (found in regeneratively grown organic vegetables and fruit). Melatonin also protects glutathione from degradation, whereas mercury (fish, seafood and vaccines) quickly leads to the destruction of glutathione and thus to cell damage.
I don't think we need any doctors (trained in the pharmacological model, or any useless research to understand this.
One doesn't have to be a scientist or a doctor to grasp if you are indoors all day, not focusing on good sleep, take drugs and medications (particularly vaccines and antibiotics), are exposed to antimicrobial sprays, and are eating processed food and not fresh regeneratively grown fruits, veg and legumes you are GOING TO GET SICK!
There are a group of doctors who study this topic intensely and have a lot of interesting hypothesis. They just get very minimal coverage and most people aren't aware they exist (a few are my friends). One of my long term project in the medical field has been to devise an economical approach for addressing these ailments.
Well I am incredibly intrigued to hear any ideas. I am sure you are aware I have CFS/M.E and there are many boxes left unticked on my bucket list that seem impossible today. But there is always hope for tomorrow.
The issue from my perspective is that I've never found a single thing that treats all CFS. What you need to do varies person to person (there are around 10 things I've seen work in different cases). The problem is that all the people who treat this get very wedded to one specific model and then will not use any other approach, so they help the people where their approach helps, but end up wasting a lot of resources for people where it doesn't help (and in some cases create iatrogenic complications).
From my perspective it is that everyone has a cure. It all costs money. None actually promise returns.
So I don't trust a lot anymore and follow a naturopathic approach which is free (saves me money actually) and has no potential of pharmaceutical complications (because I don't take any).
By limiting or minimizing oxidative stress, inflammation and fatigue. Good diet. Rest. Pacing. Avoiding things that use too much energy or are otherwise even slightly harmful. This is not a cure but helps manage the severity of my symptoms significantly.
But I am always open to accessible relatively low cost ideas.
Financial stress is still stress. Stress must be minimized for health to be maximized.
As someone with a mystery presumed autoimmune "disease" (actually it's a syndrome), MMN, I've been following pretty much the same philosophy as you.
There are too many opinions about what a "good" diet is, but in my case low-carb/high fat/no vegetable oil improved my health immensely, although it didn't reverse the neuropathy. I just try to reasonably follow an evolutionarily appropriate diet.
And NO pharmaceuticals. I'm still regretful that I succumbed to the first Covid vaccine propaganda, only so that my neighbors would trust me, but afterwards saw the light.
I'm glad you mentioned post-Lyme disease/chronic Lyme. With all the hoopla (and $$$) about Long Covid, chronic Lyme has been completely brushed aside, although it's been considered hypochondria in the official narrative anyway. I have good friends with chronic Lyme. I had an acute Lyme infection a few years ago and at the time learned how the CDC has its head up its butt with regard to testing, so I was predisposed to be skeptical of public health pronouncements anyway.
With the neuropathy diagnosis (in 2010) I started reading intensively about the immune system, which led into subcellular biochemistry, and long ago concluded that most problems are based in the mitochondria. Are you suggesting that the reverse transcription happens to the mitochondrial DNA? Or that alteration of the cellular DNA causes epigenetic changes that affect mitochondria? I'd be interested in more information about research into this.
Firstly I have to say thank you very much for your comment and sharing your perspective and also for the little questions at the end.
Regarding those questions. I think the most likely scenario is mutagenic action on the mitochondrial DNA. Which is less sheltered and protected than the DNA found in the cell nucleus. But this is purely a guess. I actually have no idea.
If you think of the mitochondria as a little engine. Like an engine, it needs a carburetor. Too much fuel and or air in the mix and complete combustion does not occur the engine either runs too rich, or too lean. I think something like this is occuring and so ATP and energy is not correctly being manufactured. Causing the cell to be "tired" and to perform poorly. This phenomena could explain the appearance of either immune suppression or over excitability. If this is occuring in those cells and tissues.
I have not entirely given up on the idea of epigenetics playing a part along with a "habit" developing within cells.
As in it may be possible cells themselves learn habits and express genes based on these habits they have learned. The only reason I think epigenetics is less likely than mutagenesis is the seemingly permanence of these syndromes.
Spontaneous recovery does however appear possible. It is also unlikely and uncommon. But because this does occur in some. Epigenetic habits could explain this. This makes more sense to me than a whole host of cells and tissues suddenly becoming mutated again but in all the right ways. Leading to remission. But again. I DON'T KNOW.
This is where it will become apparent to anyone reading that I am not a scientist. And so I am willing to throw out the scientific method for a moment and go commando. Because there are a number of intracellular processes that could be occurring. These are also incredibly difficult to study in detail. Because where you have epigenetic factors, you need an accurate and realistic environment. As the environment itself changes gene expression too changes. And how can we study living cells and their organelles in situe? Doing this type of study in vitro cannot work. As there is no way (to my knowledge) to mimic the complex environments occuring inside the body.
So both theories are probably possible. Even the third and least likely option that DNA in the nucleus could be the site of mutagenesis is still possible. I just think this is less likely than the other two theories. Because my gut told me so. So to be clear there is no scientific basis. Just a gut feeling.
My goal when writing and publishing this, was to find other minds to discuss the ideas in detail. More hands make light work. More minds too build or develop better ideas.
So thank you. Any further input is very welcome.
Revisiting an old thread! You said 'complete combustion does not occur the engine either runs too rich, or too lean'.
An overabundance of unnatural polyunsaturated fats — modern vegetable oils high in linoleic acid — does something along these lines. It doesn't properly create ROS (I forget if it's from Complex I or Complex III in the ETC), which in this case is a signaling molecule; this results in the proton gradient in the mitochondrion getting out of whack, and also messing up insulin signaling, another job of these ROS. ROS aren't all bad, and today's overemphasis on antioxidants, assuming they do anything at all, could be actually interfering in the signaling that is going on.
Two bloggers who frequently discuss this are Peter at Hyperlipid and Tucker Goodrich at Yelling Stop.
Also. Just like yourself. When I was diagnosed with CFS/ME in 2014. I also went down a similar path of learning and self taught education. I particularly looked into inflammation, cytokines, the microbiome and neurotransmitters including nootropics (the movie limitless sparked this). Then onto mitochondria and the immune system. Neuroplasticity and Psychoneuroimmunology and epigenetics.
I actually got quite lucky because the first book I ever read on this sort of topic was one I picked up at a second hand store (op shop) called "Sick and tired by Dr Nick Read" and covered briefly a lot of this and emerging field of functional medicine from the perspective of 2005. But beyond my army medic training and diploma in military medicine, this book was essentially my starting point.
The book was kind of brief and over simplified linking fatigue and various diseases to what Dr Read terms "sickness behavior" but this single theory still holds a lot of merit in my mind. It just doesn't explain in any detail why this occurs. He however muses over a heap pf possibilities. This ultimately lead me way further down the rabbit hole.
Thank you for saying this. Chronic or post Lyme syndrome ....I found one doctor who helped me enormously (but too late) and he was driven to retire. The state Dept of Health threatened him every day.
I think one day in the future, if we are successful in saving the babies yet to be born, and maybe some of the world 's existing populations, there will come a time and person who solves this...and people in the future will laugh at the appraoch taken now...and say weren't people barbaric? Like we look back at doctors using leeches for everything. And how horrible it was for the sufferers...like being a leper in the olden times.
Midwestern Doctor:
As a long time patient with a horrifying medical history and treatments of all the awful stuff you have ever heard of, I would be VERY interested in what you are doing. I end up paying for both Medicare and my actual medical expenses out of my pocket, as I feel I need to keep basic insurance in case of injuries, but they will not pay for anything that is useful to me. They will happily pay for all the toxic meds I could eat, but I don't want any anymore, been there, done that, have the mental and physical scars.
I follow you on your substack too, please keep us informed!
Conway Judge: I am all of the above, or none of the above, no one can decide, we just all know I'm badly broken. Following you in your journey too, hoping you come up with things I can try. My sympathy, I wouldn't wish this on anyone, I always hate seeing people I like having these issues also.
I opted out of health care insurance a while back after I realized it never covered anything I needed, and in the occasional situations where it had something you might need, MD save often had it for a better rate than what you paid with insurance.
After reading this great post and all the comments I’m impressed by all the evolving knowledge. My own experience with myself and a son has been 25 years of AI disease & very toxic “treatment.” My “simplified” answer in hindsight is now to avoid all medical “help”, including that of cash milking naturopaths. My son and I now consent to see a trusted allergist for desensitization treatment & we remain wary of this too. We have become good at growing food, eating good diets, exercise, interacting with the natural world and honoring our own human interdependence through philosophy, spirit, language, music. I remain convinced it all goes way past individual and collective health straight through to recognizing our own intentions and those of others.
Hiya, first of all with my magic wand, I would stop using the military as pin cushions for rushed- to -market, experimental, neurotoxic, and unnecessary vaccines.
We seem to have forgotten the swine flu hoax of 2009. 50 million US citizens panicked by a pandemic that never materialised took a vaccine in good faith. 20-40% of them suffered severe illness, including paralysis, narcolepsy and death. The damages amounted to $2.7 billion.
Then as now the public don't know what's in vaccines. According to the German regulatory authority, instead of 5 micrograms maximum thiomersal (mercury containing) suddenly these vaccines contained 25 (5x as much). Mercury is the strongest non-radioactive poison. There is also aluminium (cell and nerve poison), formaldehyde (carcinogenic), polysorbate 80 (compromises gut and blood/brain barrier), squalene (made from endangered sharks and causes inflammation when injected and arthritis in animal models)
And PEG too, I think
Once I've removed vaccines with my magic wand I am going to get fresh fruit and vegetable and legumes to everyone especially in the military (Bear Grylls has written on the poor processed meat based diet), this is essential if we actually care about the health of people but would also save money.
I am very sorry for the suffering. I believe people when they say they are suffering
Ask the Mother of God for help
Hiya again- I don't think it's viruses that are causing disease at all; we have obesity, malnutrition, anti microbials, environmental pollutants, recreational and pharmaceutical drugs for that! https://georgiedonny.substack.com/p/were-so-far-down-the-rabbit-hole?s=w and you may also be interested in my demolition of HIV/AIDS theory https://georgiedonny.substack.com/p/the-importance-of-intellectual-freedom?s=w which highlights how far lab based science is removed from reality
Jo
Very interesting on the spike, what is it and what does it do. Perhaps you can help
-. The ‘spike’ protein is said to have molecular weight of 78.3kDa (6) by some, others 180kDa and 90 KDa reflecting uncleaved and cleaved (7) and by others (8) between 486 and 493KDa which was larger than their expected 420kDa, based on the amino acid sequence, though it was thought to contain additional glycans. The spike has been claimed to be produced by cell cultures since the 1990’s (9), this time with an apparent monomer weight of 170- 230KDa. However big it is, it is not novel.
The proteins said to be the core proteins of HIV turned out to be polymers of cellular proteins for example in 1989 the “HIV” proteins p120 (thought to be the HIV knob/spike protein) and p160 were shown to be polymers of the p41/42 protein (which is the cellular protein actin)(10)
https://georgiedonny.substack.com/p/spikes-and-knobs?s=w thank you!
I thoroughly recommend Virus Mania by Engelbrecht and also What really makes you Ill by Dawn Lester and David Parker.
'The significant increase in all kinds of chronic diseases over the past few decades suggests that the population in industrialised countries is suffering from a growing glutathione (the master anti-oxidant) deficiency and/or a mitochondrial hypofunction, caused on the one hand by increasing exposure to more and more toxins and harmful radiation, and on the other hand by the supply of poor-quality food that contains less and less vital nutrients because it is produced using in industrial farming methods and on depleted soils.'
Glutathione levels are greatly increased by sulphur containing compounds found in garlic and herbs. Healthy sleep also regenerates glutathione reserves in the liver and increases melatonin, also a free-radical scavenger. Melatonin requires enough natural light in the day, vitamins and tryptophan (found in regeneratively grown organic vegetables and fruit). Melatonin also protects glutathione from degradation, whereas mercury (fish, seafood and vaccines) quickly leads to the destruction of glutathione and thus to cell damage.
I don't think we need any doctors (trained in the pharmacological model, or any useless research to understand this.
One doesn't have to be a scientist or a doctor to grasp if you are indoors all day, not focusing on good sleep, take drugs and medications (particularly vaccines and antibiotics), are exposed to antimicrobial sprays, and are eating processed food and not fresh regeneratively grown fruits, veg and legumes you are GOING TO GET SICK!
Humanity has been forever altered by this hubris.
The age of Science ends with this sin.
What follows is either the age of the Antichrist (as Jung predicted), or an age of awakening.
Maybe they will follow that order, if the prophecies hold any water.
Philip McMillan is deeply involved in the correlations discussed in this blog. Check him out.
I also disagree with you on viruses being a single cause of a collection of symptoms https://georgiedonny.substack.com/p/seeing-is-believing?s=w
I am not convinced it is viruses per se either. More proteins or other toxins. But I'll take a good read through tomorrow morning.