627 lines
52 KiB
HTML
627 lines
52 KiB
HTML
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span
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style="font-size: medium"
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><strong>MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS AND OTHER HORMONE-RELATED BRAIN SYNDROMES (1993)</strong></span></span
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></span>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>Since I am trying to discuss a complex matter in a single article, I have separately outlined the
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essential technical points of the argument in a section at the beginning, then I explain how my
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ideas on the subject developed, and finally there is a glossary. If you start with
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"Short-day brain stress," "Estrogen's effects," and "Symptoms and therapies," you will have the
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general picture, and can use the other sections to fill in the technical details.</span></span
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></span>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span
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style="font-size: small"
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><strong>THE ARGUMENT:</strong></span></span></span>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>1) The hormones pregnenolone, thyroid, and estrogen are involved in several ways with the changes
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that occur in multiple sclerosis, but no one talks about them.</span></span></span>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>2) The process of myelination is known to depend on the thyroid hormone. The myelinating
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cells are the oligodendroglia (oligodendrocytes) which appear to stop functioning in MS
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(and sometimes to a milder degree in Alzheimer's disease, and other
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conditions). The cells' absorption of thyroid hormone is influenced by dietary
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factors.</span></span></span>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>3) The oligodendrocytes are steroid-producing cells (1), and steroidogenesis is dependent on
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thyroid hormone, and on thyroid-dependent respiratory enzymes and on the heme-enzyme
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P-450scc, which are all sensitive (2) to poisoning by carbon monoxide and cyanide. The
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steroid produced by the oligodendrocytes is pregnenolone, which is known to have a
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profound anti-stress action (3), and which appears to be the main brain-protective
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steroid.</span></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>4) Lesions resembling those of MS can be produced experimentally by carbon monoxide or cyanide
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poisoning.(4) The lesions tend to be associated with individual small blood vessels,
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which are likely to contain clots. (Since all animals have enzymes to
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detoxify cyanide, this poison is apparently a universal problem, and can originate in the
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bowel. "Detoxified" cyanide is still toxic to the thyroid.) </span></span></span>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>5) Pregnenolone and progesterone protect against nerve damage (5) by the excitotoxic amino acids
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(glutamic acid, aspartic acid, monosodium glutamate, aspartame, etc.), while estrogen (6) and
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cortisol (7) are nerve-destroying, acting through the excitotoxic amino acids.
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Excitotoxins destroy certain types of nerve, especially the dopaminergic and cholinergic types,
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leaving the noradrenergic types (8), paralleling the changes that occur in aging. The
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clustering of oligodendrocytes around deteriorating nerve cells could represent an adaptive
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attempt to provide pregnenolone to injured nerve cells.</span></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>6) The involvement of hormones and environmental factors probably accounts for the intermittent
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progress of multiple sclerosis. To the extent that the environmental factors can be
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corrected, the disease can probably be controlled.</span></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span
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style="font-size: small"
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><span style="font-style: normal"><strong>SHORT-DAY BRAIN STRESS</strong></span></span></span></span
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>
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<blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>Shortly after I moved from Mexico to Montana, one of my students, a 32 year old woman, began having
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the same sensory symptoms her older sister had experienced at the same age, at the onset of
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multiple sclerosis. Vertigo and visual distortions of some sort made her consider
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withdrawing from the university. I'm not sure why she tried eating a whole can of tuna for lunch
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a couple of days after the onset of symptoms, but it seemed to alleviate the symptoms, and she
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stayed on a high protein diet and never had a recurrence. She told me some of the lore of
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MS: That it mostly affects young adults between the ages of 20 and 40, that it is common in high
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latitudes and essentially unknown in the tropics, and that it is sometimes exacerbated by
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pregnancy and stress. (Later, I learned that systemic lupus erythematosis and other
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"auto-immune" diseases also tend to occur mainly during the reproductive years. I
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discussed some of the implications of this in "Bean Syndrome.")</span></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>Having enjoyed the mild climate of Mexico, I became very conscious of the harm done to us by
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northern winters, and began developing the idea of "winter sickness." In 1966-67,
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allergies, PMS, weight gain, colitis, and arthritis came to my attention as winter-related
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problems, and I assumed that the high-latitude incidence of MS related to what I was seeing and
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experiencing. Studies in Leningrad began revealing that mitochondria are injured during
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darkness, and repaired during daylight. I observed that hamsters' thymus glands shrank in
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the winter and regenerated in the summer; shrinkage of the thymus gland is a classical feature
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of stress, and usually reflects the dominance of cortisone, though estrogen and testosterone
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also cause it to shrink. Winter's darkness is stressful in a very fundamental way, and
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like any stress it tends to suppress thyroid function. In the hypothyroid state, any
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estrogen which is produced tends to accumulate in the body, because of liver sluggishness.</span
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></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>I began to see that PMS could be controlled by certain things--extra light, supplements of sodium
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and magnesium, high quality protein, and correction of deficiencies of thyroid and
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progesterone. In working on my dissertation, I saw that tissue hypoxia (lower than optimal
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concentrations of oxygen in the blood) may result from estrogen excess, vitamin E deficiency, or
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aging. There is a close biological parallel between estrogen-dominance and the other
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hypoxic states, such as stress/shock, and aging.</span></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span
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style="font-size: small"
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><span style="font-style: normal"><strong>ESTROGEN'S EFFECTS</strong></span></span></span></span>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>As a portrait painter, I had been very conscious of the blue aspect that can often be seen in the
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skin of young women. In pale areas, the color may actually be blue, and in areas with a rich
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supply of blood, such as the lips, the color is lavender during times of high estrogen
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influence--around ovulation and puberty, for example. During these times of estrogen
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dominance, the blood is not only poorly oxygenated, but it has other special properties, such as
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an increased tendency to clot. The Shutes' work in the 1930s began with the use of vitamin
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E to antagonize estrogen's clot-promoting tendency, and led them to the discovery that vitamin E
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can be very therapeutic in heart disease. More recently, it has been found that men with
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heart disease have abnormally high estrogen (9), that women using oral contraceptives have
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higher mortality from heart attacks (10), and that estrogen tends to promote spasm of
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blood vessels (11). (These reactions are probably related to the physiology of
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menstruation, in which progesterone withdrawal causes spasms in the spiral arteries of the
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uterus, producing endometrial anoxia and cell death.)</span></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>In toxemia of late pregnancy, or eclampsia, the exaggerated clotting tendency caused by excess
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estrogen (or by inadequately opposed estrogen, i.e., progesterone deficiency), can cause
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convulsions and strokes. Vascular spasms could be involved here, too. The stasis
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caused by the vasospasm would facilitate clotting. (Vascular spasm has been observed in
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epilepsy, too. Epilepsy can be brought on by the premenstrual excess of estrogen, and in
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that situation there is no evidence that clotting is involved. Leakage of hemoglobin out
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of red cells can cause vasospasm, so bleeding, clotting, strokes, and seizures can interact
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complexly.) The brains of women who have died following eclampsia show massive
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clotting in the blood vessels, and their livers are characteristically injured, with clots
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(12).</span></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>Tom Brewer and others have shown very clearly that malnutrition, especially protein deficiency, is
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the cause of toxemia of late pregnancy. (In Nutrition for Women, I discussed the
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importance of protein in allowing the liver to eliminate estrogen.)</span></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>Various researchers have demonstrated that the plaques of MS usually occur in the area served by a
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single blood vessel (13, 14), and some have suggested that clotting is the cause. MS
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patients have been found to have an abnormal clotting time, and it has been suggested that an
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altered diet might be able to correct the clotting tendency.</span></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>Studies in animals have shown clearly that a protein deficiency increases the fibrinogen content of
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blood. (Field and Dam, 1946.) Other factors that increase blood clotting are elevated
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adrenalin and cortisone. Protein deficiency causes an adaptive decrease in thyroid
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function, which leads to a compensatory increase in adrenaline and cortisone. The
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combination of high estrogen with high adrenaline increases the tendency for both clots and
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spasms of the blood vessels (11).</span></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>In experimental poisoning of animals with carbon monoxide or cyanide, the brain lesions resembling
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MS include blood clots. The patchy distribution of these spots in the brain suggests that
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the clotting is secondary to metabolic damage in the brain. Presumably, the same would be
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true in ordinary MS, with clots and spasms being induced in certain areas by metabolic
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abnormalities in brain cells. The injured cells that are responsible for myelination of
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nerve fibers are steroid-forming cells. A failure to secrete their protective pregnenolone
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could cause a local spasm of a blood vessel. The circulatory problem would exacerbate the
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respiratory problem. Steroid production is dependent on NADH and NADPH, and so requires adequate
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energy supplies and energy metabolism. The phenomenon of blood-sludging, studied by M.
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Knisely at the University of Chicago in the l930s and l940s, is apparently a general result of
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decreased energy metabolism, and is likely to be a factor in energy-and-circulatory vicious
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circles.</span></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote></blockquote>
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<blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span
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style="font-size: small"
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><span style="font-style: normal"><strong>SYMPTOMS AND THERAPIES</strong></span></span></span></span
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>
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</blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>Around 1976 I met a woman in her mid-thirties who heard about my work with progesterone in
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animals. She had been disabled by a brain disease that resembled MS or Devic's disease,
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inflammation of the optic nerves. It would sometimes cause blindness and paralysis that
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persisted for weeks at a time. During remissions, sometimes using a wheelchair, she would
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go to the medical school library to try to understand her condition. She came across
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Katherina Dalton's work with progesterone, and convinced a physician to give her a trial
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injection. Although she had trouble finding people who were willing to give her
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progesterone, her recovery was so complete that she was able to climb stairs and drive her car,
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and she came to my endocrinology class and gave a very good (and long) lecture on
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progesterone therapy. Although her sensory and motor functions became normal, she remained
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very fat, and chronically suffered from sore areas on her arms and legs that seemed to be
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abnormal blood vessels, possibly with phlebitis. She appeared to need thyroid hormone as
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well as larger amounts of progesterone, but never found a physician who would cooperate, as far
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as I know.</span></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>In the late 1970s I was seeing a lot of people who had puzzling health problems. In a period
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of two or three years, there were five people who had been diagnosed by neurologists as having
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multiple sclerosis. In talking to them, it seemed clear that they had multiple symptoms of
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hypothyroidism. They weren't severely disabled. Since they weren't fat or
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lethargic, their physicians hadn't thought they could be hypothyroid. When they tried
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taking a thyroid supplement, all of their symptoms disappeared, including those that had led to
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their MS diagnosis. One of the women went to her doctor to tell him that she felt
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perfectly healthy since taking thyroid, and he told her to stop taking it, because people who
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have MS need a lot of rest, and she wouldn't get enough rest if she was living in a normally
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active way. The assumption seemed to be that the diagnosis was more important than the person.
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(When I refer to a "thyroid supplement" I mean one that contains some T3. Many people
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experience "neurological symptoms" when they take thyroxine by itself. Experimentally, it
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has been found to suppress brain respiration, probably by diluting the T3 that was already
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present in the brain tissue.) </span></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote></blockquote>
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<blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-size: small"><span
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style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"
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><span style="font-style: normal"><strong>METABOLISM OF THE OLIGODENDROCYTES</strong></span></span
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></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>The rate-regulating step in steroid synthesis involves the entry of cholesterol into the
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mitochondria, where the heme-enzyme P-450scc then removes the side-chain of cholesterol
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(by introducing oxygen atoms), to produce pregnenolone. This enzyme can be poisoned by
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carbon monoxide or cyanide, and light can eliminate the poison (15); this could be one aspect of
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the winter-sickness problem. </span></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote></blockquote>
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<blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>Peripheral nerves are myelinated by essentially the same sort of cell that is called an
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oligodendrocyte in the brain, but outside the brain it is called a Schwann cell. It is
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easier to study the myelin sheath in peripheral nerves, and the electrical activity of a nerve
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is the most easily studied aspect of its physiology. Certain experiments seemed to
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indicate a "jumping" (saltatory) kind of conduction along the nerve between Schwann cells, and
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it was argued that the insulating function of the myelin sheath made this kind of conduction
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possible. This idea has become a standard item in physiology textbooks, and its
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familiarity leads many people to assume that the presence of myelin sheaths in the brain serves
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the same "insulating" function.</span></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>For a long time it has been known that heat production during nerve conduction reveals a more
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continuous mode of conduction, that doesn't conform to the idea of an electrical
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current jumping around an insulator. Even if the myelin functioned primarily to produce
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"saltatory conduction" in peripheral nerves, it isn't clear how this process could function in
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the brain. I think of the issue of "saltatory conduction at the nodes of Ranvier" as
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another of the fetish ideas that have served to obstruct progress in biology in the United
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States. A more realistic approach to nerve function can be found in Gilbert Ling's
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work. Ling has demonstrated in many ways that the ruling dogma of "cell membrane" function
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isn't coherently based on fact. He found that hormones such as progesterone regulate the
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energetic and structural stability of cells. Many people, unaware of his work, have felt
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that it was necessary to argue against the idea that there are anesthetic steroids with
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generalized protective functions, because of their commitment to a textbook dogma of "cell
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membrane" physiology.</span></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>I think the myelinating cells do have relevance to nerve conduction, but I don't think they serve
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primarily as electrical insulators. If the adrenal cortex were inside the heart, it would
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be obvious to ask whether its hormones aren't important for the heart's function. Since
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the oligodendrocytes are steroid-synthesizers, it seems obvious to ask whether their production
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of pregnenolone in response to stress or fatigue isn't relevant to the conduction processes of
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the nerves they surround.</span></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote></blockquote>
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<blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span
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style="font-size: small"
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><span style="font-size: small"><strong>OLD AGE</strong></span></span></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>A biologist friend of mine who was about 85 became very senile. His wife started giving him
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thyroid, progesterone, DHEA and pregnenolone, and within a few days his mental clarity had
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returned. He continued to be mentally active until he was 89, when his wife interfered
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with his access to the hormones.</span></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>In old age the brain steroids fall to about 5% of their level in youth. Pregnenolone and DHEA
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improve memory in old rats, and improve mood stability and mental clarity of old people.
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Pregnenolone's action in improving the sense of being able to cope with challenges probably
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reflects a quieting and coordinating of the "sequencing" apparatus of the forebrain, which is
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the area most sensitive to energy deprivation. This is the area that malfunctions in
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hyperactive and "dyslexic" children. Weakening of the sequencing and sorting processes
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probably explains the common old-age inability to extract important sounds from environmental
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noise, creating a kind of "confusion deafness." Insomnia, worry and "restless legs" at
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bedtime are problems for many old people, and I think they are variations of the basic
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energy-depletion problem.</span></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
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>The oligodendrocytes were reported (Hiroisi and Lee, 1936) to be the source of the senile plaques
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or amyloid deposits of Alzheimer's disease.(16) Hiroisi and Lee showed the cells in
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different stages of degeneration, ending with translucent "mucoid" spots that stained the same
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as amyloid, the material in the senile plaques. This type of cell also appears to form a
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halo or crown around degenerating nerve cells--possibly in a protective reaction to provide the
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nerve cell with any pregnenolone the oligodendrocytes are able to make. The
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oligodendrocytes, the source of the brain steroids (that people previously believed came from
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the adrenals and gonads, and were just stored in the brain), myelinate nerve fibers under
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the influence of thyroid hormone (17). Thyroid is responsible for both myelination
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and hormone formation. In old age, glial cells become more numerous, and nerve cells
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become structurally and functionally abnormal, but usually there is no problem with
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the formation of myelin. In MS, the problem is just with myelination, and there are
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no senile plaques or defects in the nerve cells themselves. </span></span></span>
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222"> <span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span
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style="font-size: small"
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><span style="font-style: normal"><span style="font-weight: normal"
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>These differences suggest the possibility that Alzheimer's disease involves a
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specific premature loss of brain pregnen- olone production, but not of
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thyroid. Recent work suggests a central role for pregnenolone and progesterone in
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the regulation of consciousness (18), and possibly in the brain's detoxifying
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system. Elsewhere, I have suggested that vitamin A deficiency might cause the
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excessive production of the "amyloid" protein. A vitamin A deficiency severely
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inhibits steroid synthesis. (It is used so massively in steroid synthesis that a
|
|
progesterone supplement can prevent the symptoms of vitamin A deficiency.) I
|
|
suspect that vitamin A is necessary for the side-chain cleavage that converts
|
|
cholesterol to pregnenolone. Iron-stimulated lipid peroxidation is known to block
|
|
steroid formation, and vitamin A is very susceptible to destruction by iron and
|
|
oxidation. Iron tends to accumulated in tissues with aging. Gajdusek
|
|
has demonstrated that brain deterioration is associated with the retention of
|
|
whatever metal happens to be abundant in the person's environment, not just with
|
|
aluminum. (One type of glial cell is known for its metal-binding function, causing
|
|
them to be called "metallophils."). According to Gajdusek, "calcium and other di-
|
|
and trivalent elements" are "deposited as hydroxyapatites in brain cells" in brain
|
|
degeneration of the Alzheimer's type.(19)</span></span></span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>Even early forms of Alzheimer's disease begin at an age when the youth-associated steroids
|
|
have begun to decline. If MS involves a deficiency of thyroid (or of T3 within the
|
|
oligodendrocytes, where T3 normally can be made from thyroxine; many things, including protein
|
|
deficiency, can block the conversion of T4 to T3), those cells would necessarily be deficient in
|
|
their ability to produce pregenolone, but in young people the brain would still be
|
|
receiving a little pregnenolone, progesterone, and DHEA from the adrenals and gonads. This
|
|
relatively abundant youthful supply of hormones would keep most of the body's organs in good
|
|
condition, and could keep the bodies of the major brain cells from deteriorating. But if
|
|
proper functioning of the nerve fibers requires that they be fed a relatively high concentration
|
|
of pregnenolone from their immediately adjacent neighbors (with the amount increasing during
|
|
stress and fatigue), then their function would be impaired when they had to depend on the
|
|
hormones that arrived from the blood stream.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote></blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>For many years it has been recognized that the brain atrophy of "Alzheimer's disease" resembles the
|
|
changes seen in the brain in many other situations: The traumatic dementia of boxers;
|
|
toxic dementia; the slow-virus diseases; exposure of the brain to x-rays (20); ordinary old age;
|
|
and in people with Down's syndrome who die around the age of thirty.
|
|
</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>In menopause, certain nerve cells have lost their ability to regulate the ovaries, because of
|
|
prolonged exposure to estrogen (6). The cells that fail as a result of prolonged estrogen
|
|
exposure aren't the same cells that fail from prolonged exposure to the glucocorticoids (7), but
|
|
they have in common the factor of excitatory injury.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>Since people who experience premature menopause are known to be more likely than average to die
|
|
prematurely, it is reasonable to view menopause as a model of the aging process. It is now well
|
|
established that progesterone fails to be produced at the onset of menopause (the first missed
|
|
period, increased loss of calcium, symptoms such as hot flashes, etc.), and that estrogen
|
|
continues to be produced at monthly intervals for about four years. The essential question
|
|
for aging, in the present context, is why the anesthetic steroids are no longer produced at a
|
|
rate that allows them to protect tissues, including brain cells, from the excitotoxins.
|
|
Using menopause as a model for aging, we can make the question more answerable by asking why
|
|
progesterone stops being produced.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>During stress, we are designed not to get pregnant, and the simplest aspect of this is that ACTH,
|
|
besides stimulating the adrenals to produce stress-related hormones, inhibits the production of
|
|
progesterone by the ovary. Other stress-induced factors, such as increased prolactin and
|
|
decreased thyroid, also inhibit progesterone production. Stress eventually makes us more
|
|
susceptible to stress. Menopause and other landmarks of aging simply represent upward
|
|
inflections in the rate-of-aging curve. Individual variations in type of stress, hormonal
|
|
response and diet, etc., probably govern the nature of the aging process in an individual.</span
|
|
></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote></blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>The amphetamine-like action of estrogen, which undoubtedly contributes to the general level
|
|
of stress and excitotoxic abuse of nerve cells, is probably the only "useful" facet
|
|
of estrogen treatment, but a little cocaine might achieve the same effect with no
|
|
more harm, possibly less. The toxicity of catecholamines has been known for over thirty
|
|
years, and estrogen's stimulating effects are partly the result of its conversion to
|
|
catechol-estrogens which increase the activity of brain catecholamines. Estrogen's
|
|
powerful ability to nullify learning seems never to be mentioned by the people who promote its
|
|
use. The importance of a good balance of brain steroids for mood, attention, memory, and
|
|
reasoning is starting to be recognized, but powerful economic forces militate against its
|
|
general acceptance.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>Since the brain is the organ that can allow us to adapt without undergoing stress in the hormonal
|
|
sense, it is very important to protect its flexibility and to keep its energy level high, so it
|
|
can work in a relaxed way. It is the low energy cellular state that leads to the retention
|
|
of calcium and iron, and to the production of age pigment, and other changes that constitute the
|
|
vicious circle of aging. And mental activity that challenges obsession and rigidity might
|
|
be the most important brain energizer. Pseudo-optimism, humor-as-therapy, has a certain
|
|
value, but a deeper optimism involves a willingness to assimilate new information and to change
|
|
plans accordingly.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote></blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span
|
|
style="font-size: small"
|
|
><span style="font-size: small"><strong>SUPPLEMENTS</strong></span></span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>Nutritional supplements that might help to prevent or correct these brain syndromes include:
|
|
Vitamin E and coconut oil; vitamin A; magnesium, sodium; thyroid which includes T3;
|
|
large amounts of animal protein, especially eggs; sulfur, such as magnesium sulfate or
|
|
flowers of sulfur, but not to take continuously, because of sulfur's interference with
|
|
copper absorption; pregnenolone; progesterone if needed. Bright light, weak in the blue
|
|
end of the spectrum and with protection against ultraviolet, activates respiratory metabolism
|
|
and quenches free radicals. Raw carrot fiber and/or laxatives if needed; charcoal
|
|
occasionally for gas or bowel irritation. Coconut oil serves several purposes.
|
|
Its butyric acid is known to increase T3 uptake by glial cells. It has a general
|
|
pro-thyroid action, for example by diluting and displacing antithyroid unsaturated oils, its
|
|
short- and medium-chain fatty acids sustain blood sugar and have antiallergic actions, and it
|
|
protects mitochondria against stressinjury. </span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>P.S.: In 1979, a woman whose husband was suffering from advanced Amyotrophic Lateral
|
|
Sclerosis (ALS) asked me if I had any ideas for slowing his decline. I described my
|
|
suspicion that ALS involved defective metabolism or regulation of testosterone. In some
|
|
tissues, testosterone is selectively concentrated to prevent atrophy, and ALS is a disease of
|
|
middle-age, when hormone regulation often becomes a special problem. In the late 1970s,
|
|
there was discussion of a higher incidence of ALS in males, and especially in athletes. I
|
|
told her about progesterone's general protective effects, its antagonism to testosterone, and
|
|
its prevention of atrophy in various tissues. She decided to ask her doctor to try
|
|
progesterone for her husband. Later, I learned that her husband had gone into a very rapid
|
|
decline immediately after the injection, and died within a week; the physician had given him
|
|
testosterone, since, he said, "testosterone and progesterone are both male hormones."
|
|
Besides making me more aware of the problems patients have in communicating with physicians,
|
|
this tended to reinforce my feeling that a hormone imbalance is involved in ALS. Although
|
|
I haven't written much about testosterone's toxicity, Marian Diamond's work showed that prenatal
|
|
testosterone is similar to prenatal estrogen, in causing decreased thickness of the cortex of
|
|
the brain; both of those hormones oppose progesterone's brain-protecting and brain-promoting
|
|
actions.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote></blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span
|
|
style="font-size: small"
|
|
><strong><h3>REFERENCES</h3></strong></span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>1) Z. Y. Hu, et al., P.N.A.S. (USA) 84, 8215-9, 1987.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>2) P. F. Hall, Vitamins and Hormones 42, 315-370, 1985.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>3) J. J. Lambert, et al., Trends in Pharmac. Sci. 8, 224-7, 1987.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>4) W. A. D. A. Anderson, Pathology (second edition), C. V. Mosby, St. Louis, 1953.</span
|
|
></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>5) S. S. Smith, et al., Brain Res. 422, 52-62, 1987.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>6) P. M. Wise, Menopause, 1984; S. S. Smith, et al., Brain Res. 422, 40-51, 1987.</span
|
|
></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>7) R. M. Sapolsky, et al., J. Neuroscience 5, 1222-1227, 1985; R. M. Sapolsky and W.
|
|
Pulsinelli, Science 229, 1397-9, 1985.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>8) C. B. Nemeroff, (Excitotoxins) 290-305, 1984.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>9) G. B. Phillips, Lancet 2, 14-18, 1976; G. B. Phillips, et al., Am. J. Med. 74, 863-9,
|
|
1983; M. H. Luria, et al., Arch Intern Med 142, 42-44, 1982; E. L. Klaiber, et al., Am J Med 73,
|
|
872-881, 1982.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>10) J. I. Mann, et al., Br Med J 2, 241-5, 1975.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>11) V. Gisclard and P. M. Vanhoutte, Physiologist 28, 324(48.1).</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>12) W. A. D. A. Anderson, Pathology, 1953; H. H. Reese, et al., editors, 1936 Yearbook
|
|
of Neurology, Psychiatry, and Endocrinology, Yearbook Publishers, Chicago, 1937.
|
|
</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>13) T. J. Putnam, Ann Int Med 9, 854-63, 1936; JAMA 108, 1477, 1937.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>14) R. S. Dow and G. Berglund, Arch Neurol and Psychiatry 47, 1, 1992.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>15) R. W. Estabrook, et al., Biochem Z. 338, 741-55, 1963.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>16) S. Hiroisi and C. C. Lee, Arch Neurol and Psychiat 35, 827-38, 1936.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>17) J. M. Matthieu, et al., Ann Endoc. 1974.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>18) K. Iwaharhi, et al., J Ster Biochem and Mol Biol 44(2), 163-4, 1993.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>19) D. C. Gajdusek, Chapter 63, page 1519 in Virology (B. N. Fields, et al., editors), Raven
|
|
Press, N.Y., 1985.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>20) K. Lowenberg-Scharenberg and R. C. Bassett, J Neuropath and Exper Neurol 9, 93,
|
|
1950.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote></blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>GLOSSARY </span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>1. Amyloid is the old term for the "starchy" appearing (including the way it stains) proteins
|
|
seen in various diseases, and in the brain in Alzheimer's disease.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>2. Cytochrome P450scc. The cytochromes are "pigments," in the same sense that they
|
|
contain the colored "heme" group that gives hemoglobin its color. P450 means "protein that
|
|
absorbs light at a wavelength of 450. The scc means "side-chain cleaving," which refers to
|
|
the removal of the 6 carbon atoms that distinguish cholesterol from pregnenolone. Other Cyt P450
|
|
enzymes are important for their detoxifying oxidizing action, and some of these are involved in
|
|
brain metabolism.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>3. Glial means "glue-like," and glial cells are mostly spidery-shaped cells that used to be
|
|
thought of as just connective, supportive cells in the brain.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>4. Mitochondria (the "thread-like bodies") are the structures in cells which produce most of
|
|
our metabolic energy by respiration, in response to the thyroid hormones.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>5. Mucoid--refers to a mucoprotein, a protein which contains some carbohydrate. A
|
|
glycoprotein; usually not intended as a precise term.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>6. Myelination. Myelin is a multilayered enclosure of the axons (the long processes) of
|
|
nerve cells, composed of proteins and complex lipids, including cholesterol. The layered
|
|
material is a flat, thin extension of the cytoplasm of the oligodendroglial cells.</span></span
|
|
></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>7. Oligodendrocytes are one of the kinds of glial (or neuroglial) cells, and structurally
|
|
they are unusual in having sheet-like, rather than just thread-like processes; they have a
|
|
sensitivity ("receptors") to stress and valium, and produce pregnenolone when activated.
|
|
Under the influence of thyroid hormone, they wrap themselves in thin layers around the
|
|
conductive parts of nerve cells, leaving a multilayered "myelin" coating. Their absorption
|
|
of thyroid hormone is promoted by butyrate, an anti-stress substance found in butter and coconut
|
|
oil.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: georgia, times, serif"><span style="font-size: small"
|
|
>8. Steroidogenesis is the creation of steroids, usually referring to the conversion of
|
|
cholesterol to hormones.</span></span></span>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
<p> </p>
|
|
|
|
© Ray Peat Ph.D. 2013. All Rights Reserved. www.RayPeat.com
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