Thousands of articles have already been written about what multiple sclerosis really is. Every now and then there are new reports of revolutionary discoveries that put the disease in a whole new light. Perhaps the most important discovery concerns a blockage in the jugular veins. After its removal, people get up from wheelchairs; I personally saw a man who was unable to eat on his own, moved only in a wheelchair, and after the operation returned to his profession as a draftsman. It turns out that the repeated assurances of doctors and scientists for decades about the irreversibility of the disease were mere nonsense. It also follows that any hypothesis explaining the disease that assumed the irreversibility of the changes was worth less than the paper it was printed on. It is significant that the technique of jugular vein surgery was developed by a doctor who had previously treated patients with “standard” methods for decades, only when the person he loved became ill did he reject official methods and use effective ones.
No, I don’t know what this disease is. But you can try to guess, to create your own private version. I’ll play with it, but when reading the words below, you have to take into account that this is just that, fun, philosophizing that can be spun in a pub over a pint of beer, not an attempt to create a full-scale scientific hypothesis.
In principle, all patients have certain characteristics in common. At the same time, they are influenced by factors that increase the risk of inflammation, impair circulation, and impede the natural processes of myelin restoration. As if I had to create a hypothesis, I would say that sclerosis is nothing more than an unnatural intensification of natural processes. A patient is a person who simultaneously has very high blood concentrations of substances responsible for inflammation (or rather, low ones responsible for extinguishing it), has led by diet to severe circulatory disorders, and has extremely high deficiencies of certain nutrients necessary for the restoration of myelin damage. That’s it and that’s all there is to it. From the average Smith, a person with MS differs in the severity of the processes. In each of us, myelin is being destroyed and built up all the time. If for some reason the destruction processes are faster than the building ones, we have a condition called a disease, but in reality having as much to do with it as losing weight when starving.
In other words, deficiencies in a few nutrients make any inflammation in SM patients many times stronger and last longer, deficiencies in others make the body unable to regenerate myelin damage, and a combination of factors makes inflammation occur within the central nervous system. The hypothesis is strong in that, in fact, these factors occurring even singly cause demyelinating changes. Admittedly small, but nevertheless occurring. No new disease entity is needed to define the processes that occur with multiple sclerosis. People with B12 deficiencies have myelin loss, people with iron deficiencies do as well, likewise with general malnutrition, lack of choline or riboflavin in the diet, and the same effect occurs with exposure to heavy metals. Given that most of these factors are present in almost all MS patients, and those who are not damaged by at least one are practically non-existent, it is really tempting to take the point of view that the demyelinating changes in these people are solely the product of the deleterious effects of individual, minor factors.
To put it another way, if someone announced that there is a virus that causes baldness, but only in people who shave their entire head, they would be laughed at. In the case of MS, we have a disease that only affects people who have specific nutritional deficiencies that prevent the rebuilding of the brain, and specific poisonings that cause the destruction of that brain. And yet, for decades, science has stubbornly held to the version according to which the disease is random, having little to do with these factors. An absurdity. But a rather profitable absurdity.
I will list some of the factors that significantly increase the risk of developing sclerosis, and are sometimes even necessary, while explaining how they affect the risk of the disease according to this hypothesis:
- Vitamin D deficiency in youth. It makes the Epstein-Barr virus develop much more aggressively, the deficiency also degenerates the immune system, which may or may not cause an increased risk of
- Epstain-Barr virus infection. A prerequisite for the development of the disease (there are basically no patients without the virus), according to some scientists, a severe infection greatly impedes the natural process of creating gamma linolenic acid, the basis of defense against excessive inflammation
- high-fat diet. A diet with a lot of dairy and/or meat, a small amount of nuts and oilseeds prevents the proper production of GLA
- vitamin B12 deficiency. Without it, myelin does not actually regenerate at all; in practice, a single B12 deficiency alone is capable of causing demyelinating changes
- iron deficiencies. Another factor necessary in the regeneration of myelin
- vein lesions. It is not clear how they cause the disease, possibly due to the generation of local inflammation, possibly due to simple impaired circulation
- Heavy metal poisoning. Such poisoning by itself can lead to myelin loss
- lack of breastfeeding during childhood. Breast milk contains large amounts of GLA, cow’s milk or other milk for infants does not have it at all
The question arises, therefore, will eliminating these factors stop or even reverse the disease? According to preliminary clinical trials, YES! A study on GLA supplementation showed that within 2 years, the group receiving the supplements began to recover. Their condition on the EDSS scale changed from 3.5 to 2 on average, while the control group’s condition worsened from 3.5 to 5.5. A study on a set of supplements developed by one doctor (the so-called Raphah Regimen) showed after 6 months that the group using the supplements had an improvement on the EDSS scale from 3.5 to 2.45, while the control group worsened from 4.83 to 5.50. Similarly, the use of high doses of choline (the primary substance that regenerates myelin) had very rapid and very strong effects, as measured by one researcher.
These are, of course, only preliminary clinical trials; there should now be a dozen more to confirm or deny these results. And that’s what would be done if the overriding goal of medicine was to find a cure. A placebo-controlled trial is practically the strongest possible type of evidence in medicine, the higher is just to repeat the study several times. The fact that no one has tried to repeat them is a sad testament to the state of science.
The open question, of course, remains, what happens if all the enhancing factors are applied? Theoretically, the positive effect should be magnified, and personally I see no reason why it should be otherwise. This should, of course, be investigated to be sure if this is indeed the case. However, I don’t think we’ll see such research any time soon.
I emphasize that this is all my personal “ifs” and may not have much to do with reality. The studies are of course real, people have actually recovered.