Inflammation and You
In ALS, inflammation comes up over and over in the literature, and it is a significant problem. It is a problem that you are empowered to take charge of to your benefit to help change the course of this disease in yourself or your loved one.
Do a search on inflammation and lots of information comes up; als.org talks about how "the cascade of inflammation" could be treated with drugs. "Cascade" sounds pretty serious to me. The Role of Immune and Inflammatory Mechanisms in ALS explores inflammation and auto-immune responses questioning if they are helpful or harmful. Inflammation is the body's natural mechanism to deal with problems. To my way of thinking, if what you put into your body is causing inflammation, it is causing more problems. ALS is a disease of the body losing the battle to fix the mechanisms that feed the neurons, and inflammation is all over the place where these mechanisms are not working properly. Help the body to only have inflammation where it is trying to heal, not from what you put into it.
Endotoxins (endo-within) are toxins within the body from bacteria that resides in the body. They cause inflammation and are being studied for their role in ALS because their levels are elevated ALS patients. These molecules are involved in something called "leaky gut," which leads down a path to a huge range of problems including the inflammation in the gut, which is related to the poor absorption of nutrients. So, working on how you fight back to reduce these bad critters helps to reduce the number of problems the body is fight. Make no mistake, with ALS, the body is in over drive trying to fight back and you can help it.
In ALS there are many heros and Issac Chui is one of them. As an undergraduate, he saw a link between inflammation and ALS in his early research, and sought out to do research in ALS with an immunologist rather than a neurologist. He found the body producing white blood cells to try and protect neurons and the role of inflammation in the body's attempt to protect the neurons in the brain and spinal cord. Part of what was found with his work is that a drug to suppress inflammation actually caused the disease to spread faster, probably interfering with the healing inflammation around the neurons. His work has taken ALS to be looked at in a new way.
We can help the body help itself by dealing with how we can help with the nutrition absorption issue, which is related to gut inflammation, gut bacteria, and how the liver detoxifies. We can also help the body by reducing exposure to toxins and excitotoxins, which are brain toxins. When the brain is injured, as it is with ALS, the blood brain barrier is compromised. According to Russell Blaylock, excitotoxins are 100 times more damaging then when the blood brain barrier is compromised, so controlling them is critically important.
Oils are a significant source of gut inflammation, as is a grossly out whack omega6/omega3 ratio. I have written what I've learned about oils and the omega6/omega3 ratio on my blog. Gut bacteria are probably way out of balance, so help the good critters with probiotics every meal and include prebiotic foods in your diet. Learn what your body needs to help your liver. I have also written what I've learned about it on my blog that educates about the Glucothione system. Learn about excitotoxins, again, I have links to learn about excitotoxicity and I have summarized what to avoid.
Lastly, there are people who are doing much better with this disease than others. They are slowing it down, halting its progression, and in some cases reversing it. All of these are preferable to the present course of this disease. Learn about what they did and follow their lead in what makes sense to you.
This article is advisory for the reasons given. Everyone should do their own research to verify or refute and make their own decisions about whether they think it is helpful or not.
