Future looks brighter for Lyme disease care

Commentary: May is Lyme Awareness month and there is good news for Lyme patients who have continued to suffer despite short term treatment. New, more sensitive tests are on the horizon, science is confirming persistence of borrelia in animal and human studies (Hodzic E, Barthold SW (2014) Resurgence of Persisting Non-Cultivable Borrelia burgdorferi following Antibiotic Treatment in Mice. PLoS ONE 9(1): e86907; A. Marques et al. Xenodiagnosis to detect Borrelia burgdorferi infection: A first-in-human study. Clinical Infectious Diseases DOI: 10.1093/cid/cit939, 2014), recent research out of Johns Hopkins is addressing new treatment for Borrelia persisters (Feng J, Auwaerter PG, Zhang Y (2015) Drug Combinations against Borrelia burgdorferi Persisters In Vitro: Eradication Achieved by Using Daptomycin, Cefoperazone and Doxycycline. PLoS ONE 10(3): e0117207. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0117207) and the politics surrounding Lyme is shifting, so that practitioners are prescribing longer term antibiotics, helping prior short term treatment failures. As per my interview in the Poughkeepsie Journal, “the winds are starting to change”. Many well known chronic diseases have already been shown to have a link with Lyme and borrelia species, including Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, autoimmune diseases, including Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, and MS, as well as Alzheimer’s and psychiatric diseases. This is briefly discussed in this article in the Poughkeepsie Journal, and in pages 487-514 in my book, “Why Can’t I Get Better? Solving the Mystery of Lyme and Chronic Disease”, I have included hundreds of scientific references on these topics, which show how Lyme and associated tick-borne diseases can affect the body and mimic other diseases. Below is a short list of references on this topic:

Complaints attributed to chronic Lyme disease: depression or fibromyalgia?: Berman DS, Wenglin BD; Am J Med. 1995 Oct;99(4):440.

Pain, fatigue, depression after borreliosis. Antibiotics used up–what next?
Woessner R, Treib: MMW Fortschr Med. 2003 Sep 18;145(38):45-8

Post-Lyme syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome. Neuropsychiatric similarities and differences. Gaudino EA, Coyle PK, Krupp LB. Arch Neurol. 1997 Nov;54(11):1372-6

Rheumatoid factor correlates with antibody titer against Borrelia Garinii (genospecies of Bb). Kologrivova EN et al. Intensity of the production of rheumatoid factor in patients with different degrees of sensitization to B. garinii antigens. Zh Mikrobiol Epidemiol Immunobiol.2005 Mar-Apr;(2):80-3

Wilder RL, Crofford LJ. Do infectious agents cause rheumatoid arthritis? Clin Orthop 1991 Apr(265):36-41

Goebel KM, et al. Acquired transient autoimmune reactions in Lyme arthritis: correlation between rheumatoid factor and disease activity. Scand J Rheumatol Supp.. 1998;75:314-7

Marshall V. Multiple sclerosis is a chronic central nervous system infection by a spirochetal agent. Med Hypotheses, 1988 Feb, 25:2, 89-92

Fritzsche M. Chronic Lyme borreliosis at the root of MS-is a cure with antibiotics attainable? Med Hypotheses. 2005;64(3):438-48

Weigelt W, Schneider T, Lange R. Sequence homology between spirochete flagellin and human myelin basic protein. Immunol Today 1992 Jul;13(7):279-80

Ryskova O, et al. Lyme Borreliosis—incidence of serum anti-myelin antibodies. Epidemiol Mikrobiol Immunol. 2002 Apr;5(2):60-5

Neuroinflammation in Lyme neuroborreliosis affects amyloid metabolism. AUTHORS: Mattsson N, Bremell D, Anckarsater R, Blennow K, Anckarsater H, Zetterberg H, Hagberg; BMC Neurol. 2010 Jun 22;10(1):51

MacDonald, A. Concurrent Neocortical Borreliosis and Alzheimer’s Disease: Demonstration of a Spirochetal Cyst Form. Ann NY Acad Sci. 1988. 468-470

MacDonald A. Spirochetal cyst forms in neurodegenerative disorders,…hiding in plain sight. Med Hypotheses (2006)

Lyme neuroborreliosis and dementia. J Alzheimers Dis. 2014;41(4):1087-93. doi: 10.3233/JAD-130446. Blanc, Philippi, Cretin B1, Kleitz C2, Berly L2, Jung B1, Kremer S3, Namer IJ4, Sellal F5, Jaulhac B6, de Seze J7.

Approximately 75% of health care costs and 70% of deaths in the United States are due to chronic disease. Lyme is in epidemic proportion in the US, where the CDC has revised their estimates for the number of Lyme disease cases, where more than 300,000 patients per year are affected, and Lyme is known as the “great imitator”. Isn’t it time to do a comprehensive investigation into the role of Lyme and tick-borne diseases in chronic illness?

Future looks brighter for Lyme disease care, by John Ferro, Poughkeepsie Journal