Activating the Immune System Using Only Melatonin and Lithium. Overview
Everyone wants and needs an active immune system. Our immune system protects us from cancer, pathogens, and everything else that can harm us.
But activating the immune system is easier said than done. Take vaccines as an example. In the elderly, influenza vaccines rarely stimulate a prolonged activation of memory T cells. This means that the vaccine protects for about three months before gradually failing.
People with poor immune responses are prone to develop infections of all kinds. Consider HIV viral exposure. Certainly not everyone exposed to the virus develops an active infection. It depends on the status of their immune system at the time of exposure.
Remember Adam, our first HIV success story? He admits to having a poor immune system prior to infection. He caught every cold his kids brought home, and he suffered from numerous allergies. When he became infected, he was sick in bed for three weeks. Needless to say, his HIV infection quickly reached the "fast progressor" stage. We treated his infection with EGCG and melatonin and the CD4 count almost reversed itself in a month.
Now we are confronted with "Bird Flu" which has everyone terrifed to the core. If people have a poor immune system, they will not survive this viral infection.
In a previous Blog, I cited evidence that melatonin can activate cell mediated immunity in a number of different ways.
http://grouppekurosawa.com/blog/2006/01/melatonin-and-hiv-infections.htm
In this essay, I am going to throw the mineral lithium into the mix. I believe that melatonin and lithium can maximally activate the immune system. The word "activate" means that the immune system will be primed to respond immediately and appropiately to pathogens. In the case of HIV, I am hopeful that the low CD4 T cell counts can be stimulated to increase to at least semi-normal levels.
This is the story.
The following study attempted to increase the CD4 T cell count of HIV infected persons. These people all had CD4 counts below 200/ml. The authors used 40 mgs of melatonin at night and low skin injections of the immune hormone IL-2. Interestingly, the entire immune system seemed to respond to this treatment. In addition to an increase in CD4 T cells, there was a significant increase in the number of lymphocytes, eosinophils, T lymphocytes, natural killer cells, and CD25 and DR positive lymphocytes.
We don't have access to IL-2, but we can make it in the body with lithium. Increases in IL-2 counts have been reported in people taking lithium for manic depression. Lithium treatment also increased IL-2 synthesis in normal volunteers.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/queryd.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&
dopt=Abstract&list_uids=10404471&itool=pubmed_docsum
I purchased this article and examined the data carefully. It's very interesting. The subjects were given lithium carbonate, the usual form of lithium given for the treatment of manic depression, in doses of 300 mgs three times a day. Their immune parameters where examined before and after thirty days of treatment. What's interesting is that some people have little or no detectable IL-2 in their blood (103 pg/ml) while others report very high values (29,588 pg/ml). Of course, the latter could be experiencing a low level infection at the time of analysis.
Lithium treatment increased the level of IL-2 up to 7 fold in some volunteers. Interestingly, some volunteers who reported undetectable IL-2 levels did not respond to lithium at all.
The gene for IL-2 is not activated unless two DNA binding transcription factors bind it. The first is NFAT, which is activated by lithium. The second is AP-1, which is activated by melatonin.
Lithium carbonate is a very poorly soluble form of lithium. We will NOT be using this form of lithium.
Instead, we will use lithium orotate, which can be purchased in health food stores and over the Internet. This form of lithium is supposedly more bioavailable with an effective dose (for depression I guess) of 150 mg/day as contrasted to at least 900 mgs/day for lithium carbonate.
http://www.vrp.com/art/269.asp
We don't know the effective dose of lithium orotate needed to activate the immune response because it has never been tested.
But keep one thing in mind. The major reservoir of HIV in the body resides in the intestinal mucosa. The mucosal immune system plays a huge role in protecting us against ingested pathogens. We don't need to deliver lithium to the brain; we need only target the intestines, for the most part. And that ain't hard.
The next essay will concern itself with the biochemistry of NFAT, and AP-1 and how lithium and melatonin affects these critical gene activating factors.
Stay tuned...
Grouppe Kurosawa, Medicine in the Public Interest
(http://www.grouppekurosawa.com)
But activating the immune system is easier said than done. Take vaccines as an example. In the elderly, influenza vaccines rarely stimulate a prolonged activation of memory T cells. This means that the vaccine protects for about three months before gradually failing.
People with poor immune responses are prone to develop infections of all kinds. Consider HIV viral exposure. Certainly not everyone exposed to the virus develops an active infection. It depends on the status of their immune system at the time of exposure.
Remember Adam, our first HIV success story? He admits to having a poor immune system prior to infection. He caught every cold his kids brought home, and he suffered from numerous allergies. When he became infected, he was sick in bed for three weeks. Needless to say, his HIV infection quickly reached the "fast progressor" stage. We treated his infection with EGCG and melatonin and the CD4 count almost reversed itself in a month.
Now we are confronted with "Bird Flu" which has everyone terrifed to the core. If people have a poor immune system, they will not survive this viral infection.
In a previous Blog, I cited evidence that melatonin can activate cell mediated immunity in a number of different ways.
http://grouppekurosawa.com/blog/2006/01/melatonin-and-hiv-infections.htm
In this essay, I am going to throw the mineral lithium into the mix. I believe that melatonin and lithium can maximally activate the immune system. The word "activate" means that the immune system will be primed to respond immediately and appropiately to pathogens. In the case of HIV, I am hopeful that the low CD4 T cell counts can be stimulated to increase to at least semi-normal levels.
This is the story.
The following study attempted to increase the CD4 T cell count of HIV infected persons. These people all had CD4 counts below 200/ml. The authors used 40 mgs of melatonin at night and low skin injections of the immune hormone IL-2. Interestingly, the entire immune system seemed to respond to this treatment. In addition to an increase in CD4 T cells, there was a significant increase in the number of lymphocytes, eosinophils, T lymphocytes, natural killer cells, and CD25 and DR positive lymphocytes.
We don't have access to IL-2, but we can make it in the body with lithium. Increases in IL-2 counts have been reported in people taking lithium for manic depression. Lithium treatment also increased IL-2 synthesis in normal volunteers.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/queryd.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&
dopt=Abstract&list_uids=10404471&itool=pubmed_docsum
I purchased this article and examined the data carefully. It's very interesting. The subjects were given lithium carbonate, the usual form of lithium given for the treatment of manic depression, in doses of 300 mgs three times a day. Their immune parameters where examined before and after thirty days of treatment. What's interesting is that some people have little or no detectable IL-2 in their blood (103 pg/ml) while others report very high values (29,588 pg/ml). Of course, the latter could be experiencing a low level infection at the time of analysis.
Lithium treatment increased the level of IL-2 up to 7 fold in some volunteers. Interestingly, some volunteers who reported undetectable IL-2 levels did not respond to lithium at all.
The gene for IL-2 is not activated unless two DNA binding transcription factors bind it. The first is NFAT, which is activated by lithium. The second is AP-1, which is activated by melatonin.
Lithium carbonate is a very poorly soluble form of lithium. We will NOT be using this form of lithium.
Instead, we will use lithium orotate, which can be purchased in health food stores and over the Internet. This form of lithium is supposedly more bioavailable with an effective dose (for depression I guess) of 150 mg/day as contrasted to at least 900 mgs/day for lithium carbonate.
http://www.vrp.com/art/269.asp
We don't know the effective dose of lithium orotate needed to activate the immune response because it has never been tested.
But keep one thing in mind. The major reservoir of HIV in the body resides in the intestinal mucosa. The mucosal immune system plays a huge role in protecting us against ingested pathogens. We don't need to deliver lithium to the brain; we need only target the intestines, for the most part. And that ain't hard.
The next essay will concern itself with the biochemistry of NFAT, and AP-1 and how lithium and melatonin affects these critical gene activating factors.
Stay tuned...
Grouppe Kurosawa, Medicine in the Public Interest
(http://www.grouppekurosawa.com)
1 Comments:
so how would stimulating the immune system
in myeloma affect the course of the disease?
does M & L stimulate both T and B cells ?
in myeloma B cells the problem eh!
but T cell activity can manage some good stuff.
so far re. myeloma 17 days of thalidomide trumps
anything i have done previously!
dunno what happens next - joe
Post a Comment
<< Home