Autism researchers shifting away from genes - Scoliosis next?

[Dingo]

Alzheimers

Pooka1

Genes probably do create a susceptability to Alzheimers as they do in all disease.

But scientists have suspected for a long time that Herpes plays a potentially decisive role in Alzhemiers. Other viruses are also being looked at closely.

The virus behind cold sores is a major cause of the insoluble protein plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer's disease sufferers, University of Manchester researchers have revealed.

Now it's easily possible that a common disease that kills 80 year olds could be entirely genetic. For obvious reasons natural selection has a hard time eliminating those types of genes. But in the case of Alzheimers it doesn't look like that's the case.

[Dingo]

Polyomavirus associated with skin cancer

Merkel Cell Polyomavirus Associated With Rare Skin Cancer, Merkel Cell Carcinoma

...infection with MCPyV is common in the general population...

It's logical to assume that exposure to a particular microbe will trigger a particular disease. However that's not always the case. Exposure to MCPyV is common but the type of skin cancer that it triggers is extremely rare. No doubt scientists will eventually discover that some unlucky few have a genetic or situational susceptability to MCPyV or the damage that it causes.

If scientists ultimately determine that a microbe triggers the nervous system damage that causes Scoliosis there is every reason to suspect that it might be as common as MCPyV. Many if not most children would be exposed but very few would get Scoliosis. That's how Polio worked. 90% to 95% of cases were asymptomatic. In just 3% of cases the Polio virus entered the nervous system. In only a tiny fraction of those cases a child would suffer temporary or permanent paralysis.

On a somewhat related note

Vaccination could eliminate cervical cancer within 50 years.

"It's important to say up front that the HPV is responsible for all cervix cancer,"

There's overwhelming evidence that HPV screening is more effective than the Pap smear test, which misses about a third to a half of all high grade lesions...

It looks like Pap smear tests and cervical cancer are about to fade into the history books. HPV causes a lot more than cervical cancer. I'm going to make sure my sons are vaccinated for HPV when they get a little older.

Side Note:
UGA professor studies HPV vaccine
Gardasil protects people against 4 types of HPV. Gardasil plus offers protection from 9 types of HPV and should hit the market within 5 years.

[concerned dad]

Dingo (also known, to me, as Augusto Odone of Lorenzo’s Oil),
I read an article the other day and thought of you. I applaud your open mind and quest for answers. I know you’ve received some ridicule here for your sometimes, shall I say, “emphatic” stance on the possibility that scoliosis may be caused by a virus. But, I believe that thinking outside the box and setting aside preconceived notions can lead to breakthroughs.

In any event, the article that I read was about autism. The article is about a father (whose son has a form of autism called Fragile X Syndrome) who (like yourself) learned everything he could about his sons condition and linked new research with a possible treatment and met with a scientist to discuss it. The scientist said:

“In one hour the whole relevant literature is presented to you and you come away with a gut feeling that this could work out,” Santarelli, Roche’s head of central nervous system exploratory development, said in an interview. “For a scientist, a Eureka moment is why we live and do this job. You have very few, but that was one of them.”

I fervently hope (dare I say PRAY ) that one day your efforts will lead to a Eureka moment.

The article is here.

[Ballet Mom]

Because of Dingo's comments, I have been looking into the possible link between infectious disease and scoliosis. Here is a quote I found, however, I don't have the link to it because I copied only the paragraphs I wanted to keep for my own records. It was not a scientific site, kind of fluff, but it had an interesting comment:

Do Infections Cause Scoliosis and Sciatica?

A growing amount of scientific research shows that certain microorganisms lodge near the spinal cord and contribute to deformities. Studies at Western General Hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland, linked virus-like particles to idiopathic scoiosis. (1,2) Researchers at the University of Bonn have also found the varicella zoster virus can lodge in the spinal ganglia throughout life. (3)

Research in 2001 further corroborated the existence of infectious microorganisms as a cause of spine pain and inflammation. Alistair Stirling and his colleagues at the Royal Orthopedic Hospital in Birmingham, England, found that 53 percent of patients with severe sciatica tested positive for chronic, low-grade infection by gram-negative (particularly Propionbacterium acnes) which triggered inflammation near the spine. Stirling suggested that the reason these bacterial had not been identified earlier was because of the extended time required to incubate disc material (7days). (4)

The tuberculosis mycobacterium has also been shown to contribute to spinal disease and possibly deformations. Research at the Pasteur Institute in France, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, documented increasing numbers of patients showing evidence of spinal disease (Pott's disease) caused by tuberculosis. (5,6,7,8)

In addition, vaccines made from live viruses have been linked to spinal problems. A 1982 study by Pincott and Taff found a connection between oral poliomyelitis vaccines and scoliosis(9)

There is an article in Spine that refutes the Stirling study re: Propionbacterium acnes and chalks it up to culture contamination. However....my daughter has had a significant case of acne for the past couple of years and has been on large doses of various antibiotics since before last Christmas (none of which have worked very well until a recent change to Sumycin). And in her April x-ray, her compensatory curve had reduced dramatically and currently it is hard for me to see my daughter's curves at all, I have to feel around on her back to see if there is still a curve there (there is). I am quite curious to go to her next x-ray appt.

She also had a case of variant chickenpox prior to having what was probably the onset of her scoliosis. She had received the varicella vaccine when she was little, but was one of those that ended up getting a very strange case of chickenpox due to having had the vaccine. She actually ended up having some strange ballet movements after that for a while, including having her leg up in Grand Battement while everyone else's was down and vice versa, and she didn't think what she was doing was wrong....very odd. But you wonder what that virus could do if in the spinal ganglia.

Now, I have no idea if any of this is connected, but it certainly makes me think that there is a missing trigger and it could very well be an infectious agent of some sort.

Here's hoping that Eureka moment comes soon!

CD, I read that article the other day and thought it was awesome.

[concerned dad]

I'm betting Dingo (and others) would like to see the references in the text you quoted above
Here they are
1. Green RJ, Webb JN, Maxwell MH. The nature of virus-like particles in the paraxial muscles of idiopathic scoliosis. J. Pathol. 1979 Sep; 129 (1):9-12.
2. Webb JN, Gillespie WJ. Virus-like particles in paraspinal muscle in scoliosis. Br Med J. 1976 Oct 16;2 (6041):912-3
3. Wolff MH, Buchell F, Gullotta F, Helpap B, Schneweiss KE. Investigations to demonstrate latent viral infection of varicella-Zoster virus in human spine ganglia. Verh Dtsch Ges Pathol. 1981;65:202-7
4. Stirling AL, et al., Association between sciatica and Proionbacterium acnes. Lancelot 2001:V357
5. Nagrath SP, Hazra DK, Pant Pc, Seth HC. Tuberculisis spine--a diagnoistic conundrum. Case report. J Assoc Physicians India. 1974 May;l22(5):405-7
6Jenks PJ, Stewart B. Images clinical medicine. Vertibral tuberculosis. N Engl J Med. 1998 4;338(23):1677.
7. Monaghan D, Gupta A, Barrington NA. Case report: Tuberculosis of the spine---an unusual presentation. Clin Radiol. 1991 May; 43(5):360-2.
8. Peterson CK, Craw M, Radiological differentiation of tuberculosis and pyogenic osteomyelitis: a case report. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 1986 Mar;9(1):39-42.
9. Pinott JR, Taffs LF. Experimental scoliosis in primates: a neurological cause. J Bone Joint Surg Br. 1982;64(4):503-7.

[Ballet Mom]

Thanks for posting those CD.

[Dingo]

Autism link

Concerned Dad

You are too nice. I just want what every parent wants for his kids. An easy, normal childhood. I haven't been as active on the boards lately because I think (hope) I've found a system that works. Scott is doing his exercises and in 2 months he has his next recheck. Whatever the results are I'll post them here.

BTW, that Fragile-X link was awesome! If this drug works I wonder how society will treat people who look like they have Downs Syndrome but think as well as everyone else.

[Dingo]

ChickenPox

BalletMom

She also had a case of variant chickenpox prior to having what was probably the onset of her scoliosis.

Chickenpox is a type of Herpes and there is no theoretical reason to exclude it as a possible cause of Scoliosis.

Herpes can cause Encephalitis and Meningitis.

It also causes Cerebral Palsy.

The research discovered the presence of viral nucleic acid in heel-prick blood samples from 1326 newborn babies, taken over a 10-year period. More than 400 of these babies were diagnosed with cerebral palsy.

Pretty much anything that can damage the nervous system could be a possible cause of Scoliosis. However the type of damage the body suffers appears to be the result of a "smart bomb" not a wrecking ball. Children with Scoliosis don't have low IQs or other health problems. It's a very precise type of damage. This leads me to guess it's some sort of autoimmune disorder that is triggered by exposure to a microbe or something else that floats around in the environment.

That's the way Diabetes and Narcolepsy work. In genetically susceptible people a virus triggers the bodies immune system to destroy a very specific type of cell leaving everything else intact and in perfect, working order.

[Dingo]

microbes cause longterm stealth damage

Microbes can trigger damage and misdevelopment that might not be evident until decades later.

Reuters: Heart disease link to prenatal flu exposure

"Caleb Finch of the University of Southern California and colleagues studied records from the 1918 flu pandemic and found that boys whose mothers were infected during the second or third trimester of pregnancy with them had a 23 percent greater chance of having heart disease after age 60 than boys whose mothers were not infected.

Girls exposed in the second or third trimesters were not at greater risk for cardiovascular problems. But girls infected during the first trimester were 17 percent more likely than the general population have heart disease later in life."

"The researchers examined records of more than 100,000 people born around the time of the 1918 flu outbreak in the United States. They also examined the height of 2.7 million men born between 1915 and 1922, using military enrollment records from World War II.

Results showed that average height increased every successive year except for the period coinciding with fetal exposure to the flu pandemic."

[Dingo]

Chronic fatigue virus discovered

NYTimes: Virus Is Found in Many With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

“My first reaction is, ‘At last,’ ” Dr. Schaffner said. “In interacting with patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, you get the distinct impression that there’s got to be something there.”

An article published online Thursday in the journal Science reports that 68 of 101 patients with the syndrome, or 67 percent, were infected with an infectious virus, xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus, or XMRV. By contrast, only 3.7 percent of 218 healthy people were infected. Continuing work after the paper was published has found the virus in nearly 98 percent of about 300 patients with the syndrome, said Dr. Judy A. Mikovits, the lead author of the paper.

Reuters: Study isolates virus in chronic fatigue sufferers

Known formally as xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus, XMRV has also been found in some prostate tumors and is also known to cause leukemia and tumors in animals.

A Twin Study of Chronic Fatigue

RESULTS: The concordance rate was higher in monozygotic than dizygotic twins for each definition of chronic fatigue. For idiopathic chronic fatigue, the concordance rates were 55% in monozygotic (identical twins) and 19% in dizygotic (fraternal) twins (p = .042). The estimated heritability in liability was 19% (95% confidence interval = 0–56) for chronic fatigue 6 months, 30% (95% confidence interval = 0–81) for chronic fatigue not explained by medical conditions, and 51% (95% confidence interval = 7–96) for idiopathic chronic fatigue.

That's 2 or 3 times higher concordance than what is found in Idiopathic Scoliosis.

[concerned dad]

Funny, I just about to share that NY Times article with you.
A couple more extracts from the article:

XMRV is a retrovirus, a member of the same family of viruses as the AIDS virus. These viruses carry their genetic information in RNA rather than DNA, and they insert themselves into their hosts’ genetic material and stay for life.
…….….snip
Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University, said the discovery was exciting and made sense.
…snip
He said the illness is intensely frustrating to doctors because it is not understood, there is no effective treatment and many patients are sick for a long time.

He added, “This is going to create an avalanche of subsequent studies.”

As an aside, my interest in this goes deeper than scoliosis in so far as the potential tie-in to the field of RNA interference (RNAi - Fire and Mello won the Nobel Prize in 2006 for their work in RNAi). Their work may have opened the door to a whole new approach to treating many conditions, diseases and virus’s. I don’t pretend to understand much of this but I have “rolled the dice” so to speak by investing in a couple of small biotech companies with promising pipelines utilizing this technology.

[Dingo]

I hope you make some $$$

As an aside, my interest in this goes deeper than scoliosis in so far as the potential tie-in to the field of RNA interference (RNAi - Fire and Mello won the Nobel Prize in 2006 for their work in RNAi). Their work may have opened the door to a whole new approach to treating many conditions, diseases and virus’s. I don’t pretend to understand much of this but I have “rolled the dice” so to speak by investing in a couple of small biotech companies with promising pipelines utilizing this technology.

Good deal, I hope your investment pays off!

The rate at which scientists learn about illness continues to accelerate. I imagine that in another 20 or 30 years most of the common illnesses that we read about today will be well on their way to the history books.

Scoliosis won't be something our grandchildren have to face and there is a very real possibility that a "cure" will be out within a decade. It's easily possible that a common, anti-inflammatory medicine administered during the pubertal growth spurt will stop or greatly slow curve progression in most kids. The new OPN blood test will allow rapid testing to determine which medicine is effective.

[PNUTTRO]

RNAi is excited technology. I use it myself to regulate gene expression experimentally. The two big problems with it are: 1. delivery. How to get the small molecule into the cells that need to be treated? and 2. the effect is transient. For scoliosis, we still have the additional problem of what cell type to treat. (bone, muscle, nerve, connective tissue?) The good news is that the delivery issue is one that is being hotly pursued.

[concerned dad]

Pnuttro, that is very cool that you are working with RNAi techniques.
I have heard that delivery is an obstacle. I read that the company that Mello started claims to have had success with oral delivery. The two companies that I invested (rolled the dice) with deliver their stuff with a needle. One is going after a treatment for muscular dystrophy (using RNAi to restore dystrophen production) and the other has a trial where they are attempting to use RNAi to make cancer cells more susceptible to chemo and radiation.
As you say, one problem with scoliosis is that they dont know what to go after/target yet.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that smart people like yourself with acheive some major breakthroughs in the science.
If anyone is interested in reading/watching some background on RNAI here is a link to a PBS show discussing it.

[Dingo]

core piece of nervous system

For scoliosis, we still have the additional problem of what cell type to treat. (bone, muscle, nerve, connective tissue?)

Scoliosis appears to be set in motion because a core function in the nervous system is broken. Bone, muscle and possibly other tissue is impacted. A curved spine is just one side effect of a wider, underlying problem.

Melatonin Signaling Dysfunction in Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis

We began our analysis of melatonin signaling with osteoblasts not only because bone tissue is well known to respond to melatonin in vitro and in vivo,27–29 but also because the persistent osteopenia often observed in patients with AIS and in pinealectomized animals suggested that bone tissue is particularly affected in AIS.21,30,32,33 More recently, the histomorphometric data of Cheng et al on iliac crest biopsies and vertebrae of scoliotic patients showed that the osteoblasts and osteoclasts, the 2 bone-forming cell types, are impaired in their differentiation and/or functions in patients with AIS.31 However, it is unlikely that bone is the only tissue affected in patients with AIS because melatonin-signaling activities have been demonstrated in many tissues and systems. Preliminary data obtained by similar assays with skeletal myoblasts, isolated from the same pool of patients and control patients, revealed that melatonin signaling is also impaired in muscle cells from patients with AIS (Moreau et al, unpublished data). In that perspective, it will be important to assess the contribution of each individual tissue and system where this neuro-hormone exerts its function to determine whether or not AIS pathogenesis is triggered by a systemic defect in melatonin signaling and the causes of such dysfunction.