Re: High glutathione in some PWCs

[Guest guest]

Hey, Rich,

This is mighty interesting. I find it to be true to the pattern that

has made progress with a diagnostic category as broad as CFS

problematic. The body may in one stage of an imbalance or another,

and yet the effect is largely the same.

I believe that my brain is trying very hard to ADAPT, and wonder if

that is not true of my body generally, the right way to

conceptualize what the immune system is doing. We tend to think of

its purpose as clearance of pathogens but suppose its real purpose

is maintaining enough equilibrium for life to continue?

Because one sees the hypo and the hyper walking hand in hand down

the isle with the same diagnosis and quite often a similar

subjective experience but divergent lab findings.

You have enriched my understanding of these illnesses so much. In my

edition of the Hitchhikers Guide to Lyme disease, your posts figure

prominently. I am learning about the various glutamate receptors and

the broader constellations of the nervous system and other body

systems that these receptors interact with. It helps me to

understand what is taking place in my body.

Understanding is therapeutic for me, in itself.

Cheers,

> Hi, all.

>

> As regular readers here know, I have been writing a lot about

> glutathione depletion in CFS, which I think is a significant part

of

> the pathogenesis of CFS for many PWCs. In the light of this,

there

> are a couple of papers in the literature (which I cited in my

poster

> paper) that have been puzzling to me. They are the paper by

> s et al. (2000), which is reference 9 in my poster paper,

and

> the paper by Fulle et al. (ref. 10 in my paper).

>

> (My paper can be found at

>

> http://www.cfsresearch.org/cfs/research/treatment/15.htm )

>

> The paper by s et al. reported finding that CFS patients

> could be divided statistically into two distinct groups, one

having

> significantly elevated erythrocyte (red blood cell) glutathione

> relative to a healthy control group, and the other having

> significantly lower values.

>

> The paper by Fulle et al. reported finding elevated total

> glutathione in muscle biopsy specimens from CFS patients relative

to

> healthy controls.

>

> So what is going on with the patients who have elevated

glutathione?

>

> Tim recently asked me about this, so I have given it some

> more thought. In the light of the recent results of el al.

in

> autism, showing single nucleotide polymorphisms in three enzymes

in

> autistic kids, including one of the glutathione S-transferases, I

> think I now understand what's going on in these elevated

glutathione

> patients.

>

> If these patients have a single nucleotide polymorphism in one or

> more of the glutathione peroxidase enzymes or the glutathione S-

> transferase enzymes that slows the corresponding reactions down

> significantly, this would lower the demand for glutathione and

might

> allow its concentrtion to rise, but the person's body would still

> not be able to make effective use of the glutathione, and the

> symptoms that resulted would be similar to (but perhaps not as

many

> or as severe) as those that would result from across-the-board

> depletion of glutathione, since the latter would affect all the

uses

> of glutathione, whereas the former would affect only those uses

> mediated by the affected enzyme (or enzymes).

>

> It would be very interesting to see what the single nucleotide

> polymorphism picture is for these enzymes that utilize

glutathione,

> in this group of patients with elevated glutathione. I think that

> the Great Smokies Lab Genovations tests characterize some of these

> enzymes, but not all of them. Perhaps as time goes on and more

> tests become available, we will have a clearer picture.

>

> In the meantime, I continue to encourage people with CFS to obtain

a

> test for glutathione. One advantage of the blood tests for red

> blood cell or plasma glutathione is that they measure glutathione

> directly, so they are able to tell if glutathione is high or low,

> relative to normal. I don't think that the lymphocyte glutathione

> function test can tell whether glutathione is low, or whether the

> enzymes using glutathione have low activity. So this might be an

> advantage of the direct tests.

>

> Rich Van Konynenburg, Ph.D.