IBS caused by thinning grey matter in brain?

[Zizzle]

Hmmm...I don't know what to make of this. Any food intolerance connection to grey matter thinning?

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/725 ... mp&spon=20



Also, more doctor-read literature that celiac disease and gluten sensitivity are truly on the rise, but they are still looking for positive blood antibodies


http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/726 ... mp&spon=20

[sarkin]

I don't understand why this is the obvious conclusion:

Now there's evidence that their underlying problem may be due to the structure of their brains,

- as opposed to, maybe something is affecting brain *and* gut. You know - I have a wild idea - could it be gluten?

I also wonder why more people diagnosed with IBS don't just go on crime sprees, when they encounter this sort of condescension:

IBS patients tend to be over-sensitive to (and hypervigilant for) bowel sensations.

Oh, really? First they're told their condition is imaginary, then when they attend to their extremely attention-grabbing symptoms, they're over-sensitive and hypervigilant?

I can certainly imagine, having experienced it, that gluten-related autoimmune tissue damage that's messing with the gut can be doing parallel damage to the brain, among many other body systems.

Regarding the other article, when they say the difference in numbers of death between CD and latent CD patients, and the general population, and then *also* say that at least 2/3 of people with CD are undiagnosed... I read that to mean that they do not have a valid comparison between the non-CD and CD cohorts, as a whole bunch of the 'non-CDers' are actually One Of Us.

I shall let the use of 'illicit' for 'elicit' pass, while I'm quibbling (oops, too late), but must say that the 'blame-the-patient' trick, when GD doesn't resolve celiac symptoms, is pretty interesting. Is it just maybe possible that - due to lousy diagnostics for years, so folks are really sick by the time they're diagnosed - some of these folks have additional intolerances?

I know this is another of my crazy made-up ideas, but I really do believe that some intolerances, for some people, are not innate/inborn/genetic (unlike gluten intolerance), but develop as a result of the cascade of immune chaos created when gluten antibodies hit a certain point, and gluten continues to be consumed.

I wish I knew how we could know whether these are smart people, writing these things, and whether they did their homework. The quotes may not accurately represent the merits of the underlying work.

(See how fair-minded I can be?)

[tex]

To add to Sara's less than enthusiastic review, ( ), there are a couple of points in the first article that's referenced above, that caught my attention. First off, the source of this observation is apparently a psychiatrist, (or, at least, an MD with psychiatric interests). To anyone who keeps up with developments in the field of medicine, it's painfully obvious that psychiatry is a branch of medicine that is dedicated to "creating" "disorders" based on brain-related symptoms, and then attempting to treat those disorders with drugs that have endless side effects, but never effectively "cure" anything - the drugs simply treat the symptoms by creating additional symptoms, so that other drugs can be prescribed for those symptoms, etc., etc.

I realize that there are zillions of patients out there who will attest that the drugs that they are taking are essential to their well-being, but in carefully controlled random, double-blind studies, placebos almost always prove to be basically just as effective, and in some cases even more effective, at controlling the symptoms, than the drug being tested. Psychiatry is a dream come true for Big Pharma, because it allows the drug companies to develop a drug, (at random), and then create a disorder that it can be used to treat, regardless of whether the drug has any proven efficacy or not. Please don't shoot the messenger - I'm just repeating what research has proven, over and over again, over the years.

Psychiatry is an easy target, because of their adopted practices. (Pay me a ridiculous amount of money to sit and listen to you spill your guts, describing your life all the way back to the day you were born, and after 8 or 10 years of this weekly "therapy", we'll reappraise your situation, to see if you're making any progress. Now and then, I'll prescribe some brain-altering drugs, just to break the monotony, and if they don't cause you to commit suicide, we'll consider the treatment to be a success.)

I'm not saying that mental issues are not real, and I'm not saying that they don't need to be addressed - they are real, and in many cases they are serious enough that they definitely should be addressed. I'm just saying that psychiatrists really don't have the foggiest idea how to go about it. I'm saying that the field of psychiatry is so murky, and so undisciplined, that most psychiatrists are constantly seeking any straw that they can grasp, to shape into a new "disorder", that they can write about, and subsequently "treat". Most psychiatrists choose the profession because of their own psychoses - that's a fact. OK, I realize that I have just alienated myself with an entire branch of medical science, but bear in mind that I'm not the only one who feels this way.

In view of the following quote, I have a suspicion that the researchers have a problem separating the functions of the enteric nervous system, and the central nervous system. In fact, I wonder if they even realize that the enteric nervous system exists, separate and distinct, from the CNS.

In chronic pain syndromes, nerves constantly send increased pain signals to the brain. But in IBS, the brain itself seems to be amplifying pain signals it receives from the bowel.

I believe it's safe to say that signals originating in the enteric nervous system are not handled in the brain, in the same way that ordinary pain signals are handled, since the relationship is unique.

The main thing I would like to point out, though, is that you find what you are searching for. Digestive system issues affect the entire body, in various ways. If you search for effects in the brain, you are going to find markers in the brain, because the enteric nervous system connects with the CNS in the brain. So why wouldn't anyone expect to find some sort of connection? The question is, "is any particular connection that is found, actually relevant, or is it just a moot point?".

Bearing in mind that it is a proven fact that the vast majority of research conclusions published these days are incorrect, I think we're safe to assume that this report is probably more smoke and mirrors, than anything else.

Regarding the second article referenced: That's old news - they keep getting additional mileage out of it, though. As far as increased mortality due to celiac disease or celiac genetics is concerned - research results are conflicting. Some research shows that asymptomatic celiacs have the same mortality risk as anyone in the general population, other results show varying rates of increased risk. To the contrary, some authorities claim that properly treated celiacs have a longer life expectancy than someone in the general population. Take your pick. Again, since statistically, it's a fact that most research conclusions are incorrect, I wouldn't get too excited about it. A good, (or bad?), researcher can prove virtually anything that they set out to prove, and typically, their peers won't dispute their findings, (unless they happen to have a personal bias/agenda/vendetta).

Tex

[Zizzle]

It seems infection with Toxoplasma (from cat litter, meat, etc), may be associated with development of schizophrenia. Maybe mental disorders are caused by unidentified pathogens? Perhaps a bug causes IBS symptoms and grey matter thinning?

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/748 ... &src=nldne

[tex]

Zizzle,

I'm not saying that pathogens cannot cause mental issues - in fact, I'm convinced that they almost certainly can, and do. But that research report did virtually nothing to advance the knowledge base, pertaining to that possibility, because of the deceitful way that they present the results. I'm sure that you're gonna think that I'm just down on psychiatrists, and I apologize for being so critical, but like I said, they tend to make themselves such easy targets for criticism. That article is another stretch of the imagination, based on creative research reporting. Allow me to prove that:

They start off by claiming that women with the highest level of antibodies were almost twice as likely to develop schizophrenia, (as those with the lowest levels). Actually, the risk level, (according to the data), was 1.24 times the lowest, (not almost 2, as they claimed).

If you look at the data, of the 45,000, only 12,060 of them, (26.8%) tested positive to the antibodies. Of that number, only 2%, (246), actually developed any symptoms. Notice that they said:

A total of 246 of all participants developed a schizophrenia spectrum disorder during the follow-up period.

Call me a pessimist, but schizophrenia spectrum disorder appears to me to be the same old song and dance routine that psychiatrists always use, to "create" a new disorder for them to treat. We don't find out how many of the women actually developed schizophrenia, until later in the report, where they mention that "a total of 80 women went on to develop this disorder".

Well, let's see now, 80 is less than a third of the 246 women that the 73% increased risk of schizophrenia spectrum disorder was based on, so that means that the actual risk factor for schizophrenia, (based on comparing women with the highest antibody scores to women with the lowest scores), was only 1.24 - a far cry from the 1.73 that they base the conclusions of the article on. Is 1.24 a significant risk factor? Maybe - maybe not. Remember, this is an epidemiological study, so all that they can conclude is that there was an association - they can't claim any cause and effect, and obviously, they're fudging the numbers, and/or the description of the disorder, to make their numbers look better than they actually are.

Also, look at the following quote:

T gondii IgG level was also associated with a greater relative risk for schizophrenia itself (1.68; 95% CI, 0.77 – 3.46), although this was not deemed statistically significant. A total of 80 women went on to develop this disorder.

Say what? Why is a risk factor of 1.73 significant, (apparently very significant, since they go on and on about how great this risk is), when a risk factor is 1.68 is not significant. Obviously, if a risk factor of 1.68 is not significant, then surely a risk factor of 1.24 couldn't be significant.

The bottom line is, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the connection that these researchers were investigating, does indeed exist, but I sure wouldn't trust their methods - they obviously have no qualms about "creatively presenting" the data, to make the results look much better than they actually are.

Tex