the trace elements / cardiomyopathy article ref'd by Cheney

[Guest guest]

PMID: 10334427

Abbrevs added by me:

" Idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy is, by def., a disease charect. by

dilation & impaired contraction of the left or of both ventricles. Its

etiology is still unknown and the pathogenetic mechanism debated, tho

a viral an/or immune, genetic/familial or toxic mechansm has been

suggested [8 refs]. "

" Trace elements are known to have a key role in myocardial metabolism

and both TE accumulation (cobalt, arsenic) and deficiency (selenium,

ie Keshan disease) may be responsible for a dilated cardiomyopathy

indistinguishable from an idiopathic form [2 refs]. It has been

documented that even a sackie virus infection can cause a great TE

accumulation in the heart [2 refs]. "

Neg controls were patients with other heart ailments, and semi-normals

with normal heart findings whod had biopsies due to chest pain, and

semi-normals undergoing mitral valve replacement surgery who had

normal left ventricular findings.

They checked for ALOT of different elements, looks like about 30, soem

you just about never heard of.

Electron microscopy (not controlled, it seems) showed some bad stuff:

" loss of contractile elements " - " myelin bodies " - messed up

mitochondria ( " vacuolization " " with fragmentation of cristae " ).

Skeletal muscle TE concentrations normal in all subjects

discussion and refs of reproducibility problems with some techniques

as seen in the lit. " Patent discrepencies " in different TE

quantitation studies. Ref on the superiority of the technique used here.

Poor correlation between fibrosis degree and TE concentraion suggests

concentration site is mainly intracell. As does " extensive myocardial

cell degeneration. "

TE concentratin severity correl with arrythmia severity

Toxic thresshold levels of TE are not available from other findings,

tho " the extrem. high vals of Hg and Sb [...] make it unlikely there

would be no adverse effect. " Indeed.

they put forth that Hg Sb and Ag could produce the damage via ROS. refs.

pateint/control ratios were

29 for silver

250 for arsenic

11 for gold

13 for Cr

22,300 for Hg (merc)

36 for La

12,840 for Sb

14.2 for zinc

this is a walloping kick-ass finding, tho im still kinda skeptical of

the relation to CFIDS. Certainly CFIDS hearts need to be assayed for

TE in light of the other key finding cited by Cheney, link posted by

Dura Mater. Paper says the biopsy samples can be stored, so cmon, its

easy, lets get goin!

The coxsackie-TE connection in mice is the sole example of such a

phenomenon cited in the discussion. The 2 refs cited are both by NG

Ilback et al, so you can throw that name in pubmed to check that stuff

out.

All refs avail on request