Lectins, AI Disease and Mast Cells

[mbeezie]

I know I've posted about lectins and mast cells before, but I've been thinking more and more about this issue. I know that mast cells are a part of the process but are poorly understood. Dr. Cordain addresses the relationship to mast cells in his MS video. Dr. Theoharides is a mast cell researcher and he wrote these articles on inflammatory disease and selective mast cell mediator release.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17192558
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17498052

As I've said earlier, I get anaphylactic symptoms because I shock (dump mediators rapidly, specifically histamine) but the rest of you probably leak (not complete mast cell degranulation) and could have selective release of mediators. Most of us, including me, probably have a normal number of mast cells, so even doing the tryptase stain would be useless to identify a mast cell problem. IOW, I think we all have a mast cell problem, not just me.

So it appears that the bacteria or virus etc acts as the antigen and activates innate immunity, which includes mast cells, complement etc. Throught the process of molecular mimicry, lectins now take over causing a continued reaction. The lectins cause the mast cells to leak, or in my case dump rapidly. The mast cell mediators (and mediators from other inflammatory cells) lead to inflammation and AI disease symtoms. This is why I found mediator release testing helpful in deciphering the foods that enterolab does not test for (MRT does not test mast cells since they aren't in blood, but tests other inflammatory mediators). I get a horrible response to almonds (ok per paleo diet/cordain, but not for me), raw blueberries and tapioca, all of which were picked up by MRT. The combnation of enterolab plus MRT was very helpful in getting symptoms under control.

I think it is important to think about all symptoms provoked by inflammatory mediators, not just GI symptoms and to consider the relationship between mast cells and lectins. I recently read a quote that said "lectins are the root cause in search of a disease". Think beyond your GI symptoms for lectin intolerance as mast cell mediators can cause an array of symptoms. We don't all respond to the same lectins, so even Cordain's paleo diet falls short here - it picks up the most common, but is by no means specific to an individual. I think the more he studies, the more foods he will identify as problematic, but that doesn't mean we have to eliminate all of them . . . we need to determine our own specific lectin intolerances.

I know I am rambling, but this is what I have been thinking about and thought I would share.

Mary Beth

[tex]

That's pretty profound information. The implications are huge.

Thanks,
Tex

[mbeezie]

Yes, I agree tex. The more I read and try to piece together the more interesting it gets.

Mary Beth