report from Dr. Judy from the first two days of ILADS in San Diego:

report from Dr. Judy from the first two days of ILADS in San Diego: 

While there were several provocative presentations today at ILADs including one on IVIG, hyperbaric oxygen therapy and endocrine disorders, today I will focus this summary on talks given yesterday and today by Richard Horowitz.

Richard piqued my interest when he started the discussion talking about the political stigma of the name, Chronic Lyme disease! Who suffers more by political stigma than sufferers of the disease with the name Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I thought immediately.

Dr. Horowitz and I are speaking the same language, one first expressed in 2011 in Ireland by MP Basil McCrae after I described the inflammatory cytokines, immune abnormalities and co-infections in ME/CFS and autism. Basil saw the overlap in the diseases that I described but immediately thought of the political clout of working together. Millions of voters spoke volumes turning political stigma into a powerful lobby, he suggested. Today Richard Horowitz echoed MP Macrae’s wisdom and presented several hours worth of data supporting his suggestion that diseases including CLD, CFS, FM, MS, AD, autism, some cancers and PANS/Pandas be called MSIDS: Multi-System Inflammatory Diseases.

All of the diseases above share a single common denominator of activation of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines, which we were the first to publish as a signature of a specific subgroup of ME/CFS in 2011. Horowitz spent the next 3 hours discussing the more than 12 points that drive this inflammation including infections (bacterial, viral parasitic, candida), immune dysfunction, inflammation, toxicity, allergic sensitivities, nutritional and enzyme deficiencies, mitochondrial dysfunction, neurological dysfunction, endocrine disorders and autonomic nervous system dysfunction.

We need the medical research community to overlap enough to see the similarities and the example he gave here were the advances made in autism. He suggested as our recent research with Drs. Gordon, Bhakta, Deckoff-Jones and Snyderman that we could in fact identify the predominant co-infections based on distinct cytokine signatures. Moreover, if we can identify the biochemical mechanisms driving the underlying immune dysfunction and inflammation, whether you call it CLD, CFS, FM, MCS or MS; you can treat based on the underlying mechanisms. You treat the inflammation, immune & mitochondrial dysfunction and nutritional deficiencies AT THE SAME TIME. Fix that and perhaps the patient does not need long term antivirals or antibiotic regimens.

This is exactly the model that Dr Sarah Myhill and I discussed in detail a few weeks ago. In fact, Dr Horowitz mentioned Dr Myhills treatment strategy particularly. He mentioned specifically Dr Myhill’s use of oral phosphatidyl choline in combination with Low Dose Naltrexone in combination with antioxidant herbal therapies such as alpha lipoic acid, resveratrol, glutathione and micronutrients, which are all found in the comprehensive supplements in the Pharmanex Lifepak family.

There were many specifics and details in this presentation, which I will integrate into my discussion with Dr Myhill's summary of our discussion in the next few days. Thank you for the opportunity to attend this meeting. Everything I learned today I can integrate into personalized treatment strategies, which I will share with readers and their physicians

Judy