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There's a Battle Being Fought Between the ScoliScore Folks and the ICONS Folks

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  • #16
    Originally posted by Dingo View Post
    Pooka1



    The body is not perfectly symmetrical. The spine bends towards the direction of least resistance which is probably towards the right in most cases.
    Why would that be?
    Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis

    No island of sanity.

    Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
    Answer: Medicine


    "We are all African."

    Comment


    • #17
      Dingo,

      You might want to research the selenium supplements a little more, but it looks like some studies are showing that it can cause more harm than good.

      The trial showed that people who took selenium pills raised their risk of diabetes by more than half, compared to similar people taking placebos.
      http://www.news-medical.net/news/2007/07/11/27395.aspx

      Comment


      • #18
        I wish Pnuttro was here...
        Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis

        No island of sanity.

        Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
        Answer: Medicine


        "We are all African."

        Comment


        • #19
          OPN and the immune system

          BalletMom

          And Dingo just pointed out that chickenpox is a herpes virus. So it could very well be that the higher level of OPN coincides with the immune response to a chickenpox infection (or others), which usually occurs before the age of ten, the time when most scoliosis cases are found. That would be an interesting angle to research, although it looks like they are well into researching all this stuff...wonderful!
          That is a brilliant insight and it could easily be true.

          Increased levels of OPN coincide with what appears to be dozens of potentially fatal diseases. Something is clearly going wrong and the fact that OPN is tied in with the immune system is a huge clue.
          Last edited by Dingo; 09-27-2009, 03:21 PM.

          Comment


          • #20
            Selenium and Diabetes

            Ballet Mom

            You might want to research the selenium supplements a little more, but it looks like some studies are showing that it can cause more harm than good.
            As for the Diabetes link, EEEEEEEeeeeee....

            Well no substance in Earth is perfect. I guess I've got a bunch of reading in front of me.

            Comment


            • #21
              All I can say is... the internet is an amazing thing...

              Comment


              • #22
                Scoliosis gene

                Here is a rhetorical question.

                Assume that Moreau is correct, increased levels of OPN trigger Scoliosis. Unfortunately increased levels of OPN appear to be a driving force behind dozens of other potentically fatal diseases. How would a gene that kills young people 100 different ways spread around the globe? I'm not saying it's impossible but it certainly isn't probable.

                For reference here is the Wiki page on Natural Selection

                And because I never get tired of bringing this up...
                According to the following large, recent study if one identical twin has Scoliosis the other has it just 13% of the time. That's not exactly a strong case for genetics.
                Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis in twins: a population-based survey.
                Last edited by Dingo; 09-27-2009, 03:30 PM.

                Comment


                • #23
                  I just can't get over how fascinating this stuff is. Here's a link to some Multiple Sclerosis news, and there's both an article about OPN and about antibiotics helping MS inflammation! So perhaps, my daughter's antibiotics over the past year could have helped her scoliosis. I am simply astonished.

                  http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/news/A...akingNews.html

                  A critical gene called osteopontin, which is involved in the development of multiple sclerosis (MS), has been identified by researchers at Stanford University Medical Center and the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). Osteopontin is already known to be a factor in the inflammatory immune response characteristic of MS, but now researchers believe it may be positioned at a number of checkpoints in the progression of the disease. The findings could lead to targeted new therapies for MS in the future.
                  Antibiotic May Be a Potential Therapy for MS

                  A common antibiotic, long used to treat infections in humans, may have potential as a treatment for MS, according to a new study published in the medical literature in December 2001. The drug, minocycline, is a member of the tetracycline family of antibiotics and was tested in a condition that mimics MS. Study results portray a potential treatment for MS that could significantly decrease the severity of disease attacks or even block the onset of relapses, hence ameliorating many of the disease’s debilitating symptoms.

                  Minocycline is already used to treat several different infections, but it is also effective in rheumatoid arthritis––an inflammatory condition. Due to this anti-inflammatory property, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison gave minocycline to rats with a disease that closely resembles the inflammatory process of human MS. Senior researcher Ian D. Duncan, PhD, reports that “animals treated with minocycline did not develop nerve problems, or had a less severe case, than did untreated rats. . . . The results also showed that they could treat the animals successfully either before or after the disease began.”

                  The hope is that minocycline may be able to significantly decrease the severity of attacks in MS or even block relapses completely. By doing so, it could relieve many of the symptoms, from paralysis to blindness, that plague people with this disease. Studies of minocycline in humans with MS will begin in 2002 at the University of Calgary, Canada. “It is very important that a well-conducted clinical trial is carried out to test whether it is safe and effective in MS,” says Duncan. He adds that minocycline would have advantages over drugs presently used because it is less expensive, can be taken by mouth, and could be used short-term to stop disease progression. (webMD)
                  Last edited by Ballet Mom; 09-27-2009, 04:25 PM.

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                  • #24
                    I guess my question at this point is, it appears that osteopontin is an indicator for any number of disease processes, so how is it going to identify scoliosis specifically? Are they just going to assume that if it appears in that age group that the OPN levels are due to scoliosis and not some other disease process? Hmmmmm....inquiring minds and all that....

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Osteopontin is a gene? (That's what the link BalletMom quoted). Further down in their article they said
                      Steinman added that in addition to osteopontin, a number of other genes were found that warrant further examination.

                      I am confused

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        I saw that too CD, and don't understand the difference between the gene and the cytokene actions either....but it does look like there is a gene for it

                        http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/art...?artid=1137584

                        I'm way out of my territory here!

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Here's a New York Times article from some time ago that calls osteopontin a body chemical: http://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/10/sc...b-microbe.html

                          Interesting article.

                          The method the researchers used to discover the role of osteopontin in tuberculosis is also notable. They compared the thousands of genes operating in cells infected with tuberculosis with those operating in uninfected cells.

                          It turned out that the only noticeable difference was that the infected cells were producing osteopontin.

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Hmmm, and as scoliosis seems to be coming out of the dark ages and is getting some diagnostic tests for it, other diseases are moving into the Star Trek zone:

                            University of Toronto Researchers Make Cancer-Sensing Microchip
                            Share | Email | Print | A A A

                            By Reg Curren

                            Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Researchers at the University of Toronto said they have developed a microchip sensitive enough to more easily determine the type and severity of a patient’s cancer, which may lead to quicker and more effective treatment.

                            The researchers said the new device can sense the biomarkers that indicate the presence of cancer at the cellular level, generally present only at low levels in biological samples. Analysis can be completed in 30 minutes, using a handheld device such as a Blackberry made by Research In Motion Ltd. Of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

                            “This could change the way we do screening, we could do a lot more screening in the future,” lead investigator Shana Kelley, a professor in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and the Faculty of Medicine, said in an interview.

                            The chip is about the size of a person’s fingertip, she said. The chip, combined with the handheld device would replace the room of computers now needed to evaluate a sample of cancer biomarkers, Kelley said.

                            Kelley worked with University of Toronto engineering professor Ted Sargent and a team from Princess Margaret Hospital and Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

                            They reported their development of the device in the Sept. 27 edition of Nature Nanotechnology.
                            http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aW9yt5bzBvlE

                            Amazing.

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Well, this just gets more and more interesting. My daughter was on Solodyn from December to March and Solodyn is Minocycline. And April was when she had the x-ray showing a significant reduction in her compensatory curve. Very interesting. As noted in my earlier comment, it "is already used to treat several different infections, but it is also effective in rheumatoid arthritis––an inflammatory condition"

                              And here's a quote from Wikipedia:

                              Current research is examining the possible neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory effects of minocycline against progression of a group of neurodegenerative disorders including multiple sclerosis (MS), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Huntington's disease, and Parkinsons disease,[11] amongst others neurodegenerative diseases.[12][13][14]

                              The neuroprotective action of minocycline may include its inhibitory effect on 5-lipoxygenase, [15] an inflammatory enzyme associated with brain aging, and is being studied for use in Alzheimer's disease patients.[16] It also has been used as a "last ditch" treatment for toxoplasmosis in AIDS patients. Minocycline is neuroprotective in mouse models of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Huntington's disease and has been recently shown to stabilize the course of Huntington's disease in humans over a 2-year period.

                              As an anti-inflammatory, minocycline inhibits apoptosis (cell death) via attenuation of TNF-alpha, downregulating pro-inflammatory cytokine output. This effect is mediated by a direct action of minocycline on the activated T cells and on microglia, which results in the decreased ability of T cells to contact microglia which impairs cytokine production in T cell-microglia signal transduction .[17] Minocycline also inhibits microglial activation, through blockade of NF-kappa B nuclear translocation.

                              It is thought that minocycline exerts neuroprotective effects independent of its anti-inflammatory properties.[18]
                              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minocycline

                              Perhaps the Minocycline she took "downregulated the pro-inflammatory cytokine output" from the osteopontin process....now that sounds like an interesting study! Hello, hello....any researchers around?
                              Last edited by Ballet Mom; 09-27-2009, 07:09 PM.

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                pretty darned fascinating

                                Ballet Mom

                                Perhaps the Minocycline she took "downregulated the pro-inflammatory cytokine output" from the osteopontin process
                                You are posting some great stuff.

                                Here are 3 possibilities

                                A) Your daughter's compensatory curve shrank due to random chance
                                B) Minocycline reduced her levels of OPN and this (combined with growth) reduced her curve
                                C) Scoliosis is caused by OPN which is triggered by a slow moving infection in her spine. The Minocycline reduced the infection and with it the OPN response that caused her Scoliosis.

                                Bacterial infections that cause diseases like Leprosy or stomach ulcers can become chronic and last decades. Sometimes antibiotics are curative, other times they control an infection only as long as they are administered. Acne works that way.

                                There is no obvious reason that Scoliosis couldn't be the result of a chronic, slow moving infection. Many small curves shrink or resolve completely on their own. Perhaps in these cases the infection and with it the OPN response eventually die out or are brought under control by the bodies immune system.

                                Regardless of what triggers Scoliosis if a curve is reduced OPN must be as well. This assumes that Moreau is correct which I believe he is because he was granted a worldwide patent and very shortly FDA approval.

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