Viva For Your Health

If you are a celiac, your miracle cure is under way – being trialed in Melbourne Australia from April 2009! It could conceivably desensitize people with celiac disease to the point that the villi in their small intestine are not damaged by the gluten protein. However with the need for extensive testing in this three phase trial, the vaccine may not be ready for release for several years.

Before we go into the details of such a cure it should be noted that this vaccine might not be a â??magic bullet’ that makes people permanently immune to the gluten protein, it might ‘only’ desensitize them. Also be aware that if you choose to undertake the â??therapy’ there are no guarantees of how you will react, and the only way to regularly check to see if you have been â??cured’ would be regular intestine biopsies. As it is known that some people take over two years to heal their intestines from gluten damage, how risky will this strategy be? It is expected that testing will be extensive so these questions may all sit under the â??devil’s advocate’ category, and all may be well.

An even more philosophical question is what effect covering up the cause of your disease will have on your body. Books have been written that suggest that it is the increased gluten potency in wheat and other gluten grains as well as increased use in manufactured foods that has led to an overdose of gluten. Our bodies then pass a â??tipping point’ where our genetic predisposition to CD turns into an active disease. If this is true, how wise would it be to continue ingesting unnaturally high levels of gluten, once â??cured’ just because we can? Sure it would make life simpler not following a gluten free diet, however maybe we should wait for gluten to be decreased at the source, the growing fields, before we return to a gluten filled diet.

Different types of celiac disease identified

With all these issues under consideration, I am sure that every celiac would still be interested in a â??cure’. A July 2007 article based on research conducted in Victoria, Australia, showed that “Celiac disease – is strongly associated with human leukocyte antigen (HLA) DQ2 and to a lesser extent with HLA DQ8.”

“HLA genes are part of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), which plays a pivotal role in the immune system. HLA-DQ2 mediated celiac disease is common in people of European ancestry, with about 90 per cent of sufferers positive for DQ2. Another five per cent possess HLA DQ8. In China and East Asia, DQ2 genes are rare while DQ8 genes are as common as in Europe.”

So it appears that this preliminary research has been able to isolate two main versions of celiac disease. However the molecular workings of the immune response in the two antigens appear to be very different. The researchers discovered that T-cells in people with DQ8-associated celiac disease reacted quite differently to the small proteins in gluten than the T-cells in people with the DQ2 form of the disease.

“At the moment a gluten-free diet is the only treatment for celiac disease but nearly half the people on the diet still have damage to their small intestine. Consequently other therapies, including a vaccine and three different drugs, are in various stages of development. The research team believes celiac disease might be the first example of an immune disease where treatments are customized according to the genetic make-up of the patient.”

The celiac vaccine discovery

The discovery that lead to the creation of the vaccine was that the one critical part of wheat gluten protein that was toxic was the common genetic version (HLA DQ2) of celiac disease. “As much as the identity of the toxic component of gluten was important, it was the way in which it was found that has proven to be even more important. By eating gluten in wheat, rye, or barley for three days (even a single meal will suffice in some people), immune cells (T cells) that damage the small intestine are mobilized into blood for a few short days. The T cells in blood can be monitored and analyzed to define what part of gluten they recognize. The parts of gluten recognized by the vast majority of T cells involved in celiac disease can be condensed to a few “short” fragments of gluten that remain after its digestion in the gut. These gluten fragments can be synthesized using fairly standard chemistry and are the basis for the celiac vaccine.”

The Celiac Vaccine Trials

The original research began at Oxford England in 1997. The work continued in Australia in 2002 and by April 2009 Bob Anderson from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical research (Melbourne, Australia) will commence the first world trials of a celiac vaccine that could reduce or eradicate the need for being gluten free. In fact Bob Anderson calls the vaccine a “next-generation desensitization therapy” that has been successful in mice and is soon to be tested on celiacs.

“The vaccine will be tested on 40 volunteers with celiac disease over 11 months to establish that it does not harm them. In a subsequent phase 2 trial, which is designed to find out if the treatment is effective, volunteers will receive the treatment and then be challenged with foods containing gluten. Their immune response and intestines will then be examined to see if a tolerance to gluten has developed. The therapy involves repeatedly injecting solutions of gluten at increasing concentrations. The aim is to desensitize the subjects slowly, in a similar way to hay fever and dust allergy desensitization treatments.”

Testing process

“For a new drug to be accepted for use in people in Australia, Europe, or North America it must have progressed successfully from Phase 1 (safety) studies usually involving up to about 30 volunteers, to Phase 2 (efficacy) studies to show that “it works” in people with the medical condition of interest (typically about 200 volunteers in several locations around the world), and to Phase 3 (similar to Phase 2 but involving several thousand volunteers in many sites around the world).”

The celiac vaccine future

Due to difficulties in funding, Bob Anderson (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute) co-founded a commercial company called Nexpep to develop the vaccine. Nucleus Network, Centre for Clinical Studies (CCS) in the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, will be conducting the Phase 1 clinical trial.

The difficulty he has faced, besides the technical issues, is the low diagnosis level of celiac disease and the mass of associated symptoms has made a vaccine cure unattractive to traditional pharmaceutical companies. These companies always prefer well defined markets to accurately forecast payback periods for their R&D and marketing expenses.

The facts are that for this vaccine to prove financially viable, The US will need to approve the drug and doctors and celiacs will need to accept the treatment. One report estimates that only 600,000 people are diagnosed with celiac disease (out of the 5 million with celiac disease in North America and Europe). Â

Compounded to the funding challenges is that previously, globally, there have only been three “randomized, controlled” studies of the gluten free diet – one in children and two in adults – the largest with 57 participants.”

The assessment of the vaccine treatment will require repeated endoscopy and collection of small intestine biopsies which are expensive and un-enjoyable for volunteers. However a recent trial in Italy has shown that biopsies are still the only â??almost’ guaranteed method of assessing gluten damage. The study findings showed that “two years after adopting a gluten free diet, about half those people diagnosed with celiac disease continued to have villous atrophy as severe as when they were first diagnosed. Only about one in five of those with severe intestinal damage (villous atrophy) on a gluten free diet had raised (abnormal) blood levels of transglutaminase antibody, meaning that standard blood tests to monitor disease activity were relatively ineffective.”

So while the development of this vaccine is an important step in potentially eradicating celiac disease, philosophical questions still remain as issues for the long term efficacy of the vaccines. As an Australian first, this research is applauded by the gluten free community. We wish the researchers and medical staff all of the best in demystifying this illusive disease.

Article references are available on the gluten free pages website.Â

The immune system of our body is a collection of cells, tissues and molecules which work together to protect the body against any attack from foreign bodies like bacteria, viruses, fungi etc. Autoimmune disease occurs when the body’s immune system fails and starts producing antibodies which react against some of the body’s own tissues. This can have a lot of effects on the body and can even prove to be fatal in many cases. It is said to be the 3rd most common disease in USA. It is said to affect one in thirty one Americans.

An autoimmune process can cause the destruction of a particular type of cell or tissue, can cause an organ to grow excessively, and can even affect the organs’ functionality. The endocrine glands are mostly affected by this kind of disease. The generally affected areas include are the red blood cells, adrenal glands, thyroid, pancreas, connecting tissues and many skin and muscle joints. Women are more susceptible to auto immune diseases than men. The reason for this is yet to be discovered by researchers.

One of the main reasons for this could be that women have great immunity when compared to men for all kinds of diseases. So this makes them more prone to auto immune diseases.

Autoimmune diseases can be classified into 2 types:

Type1: Non organ Specific.

Type 2: Organ specific.

The first type of the disease can be spread throughout the entire body. Some of the non-organ specific disorders are: myasthenia gravis, multiple sclerosis, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

The second type is specific to a particular organ of the body. Some of the organ specific disorders are: chronic hepatitis – a disease that affects the liver, Addison’s disease affecting the adrenal glands, pernicious anemia which affects the stomach, diabetes (insulin dependent) affecting the pancreas and Hashimoto’s disease that affects the thyroid glands.

Researchers believe that there are many factors that can be attributed as the cause of autoimmune diseases. Drugs, pollution, certain types of viruses, heredity are some of the attributed causes. Many doctors also believe that close marriages or marrying family members is also a major factor for the auto immune diseases.

Doctors conduct various tests like checking your blood samples, radiological studies etc to diagnose if you have the autoimmune disease. There symptoms accompanied by the auto immune disease are specific to each disease and widely vary. The general symptoms are fever, low grade infections, fatigue, dizziness and loss of appetite.

Most autoimmune diseases are given treatment according to the symptoms. Doctors prescribe corticosteroid drugs, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and some very powerful immunosuppressant drugs like cyclophosphamide, azathioprine and methotrexate that suppresses the response of the immune system and there by the progression of the autoimmune disease.

There is no best remedy other than self care. If one takes proper care of themselves without leading an unhealthy life these diseases can be prevented. Doctors recommend a diet highly rich in vitamins and minerals can help reduce the effects of the auto immune disease.

To Your Health!

The current population exceeds 300 million people and 150 million domestic cats and dogs! Drug stores are popping up everywhere. The computer models that project human and animal health over the next 50 years must reveal great opportunity for the pharmaceutical industry.
People and their pets are already on more medication then ever before: Many are on multiple medications. Yet medications do not cure. Oddly, they are designed to treat the symptom instead of the actual cause. That hardly seems scientific.
Today, not only are people and their pets are getting the same diseases; they are transferring them to each other. According to The Royal Society of Medicine of Great Britain, “Fully 90% of all disease is caused by an unhealthy digestive system”.
Why have American doctors and veterinarians not picked up on this fact? Why, indeed!
Gastro-intestinal (GI) diseases usually starts out as relatively simple conditions. Symptoms might include eczema, eating disorders, foul smelling gas, loose stools, diarrhea, vomiting, and light constipation.
Advanced GI diseases like IBS, Crohns Disease, and chronic constipation are the result of GI imbalance combined with severe intestinal wall inflammation.
Contrary to popular medical opinion, most human and animal disease is reversible! The steps to make sure that you, and your pets, get healthy and stay healthy are relatively simple, and far less costly than doctor visits, medications, and health insurance!
The intestinal wall is the gatekeeper. This is where blood picks up the nutrients from the digested food, and takes them to feed every cell, tissue and organ in you or your pets body. The degree of illness is directly related to the degree to which the intestinal wall is compromised.
In extreme cases, the intestinal wall is so inflamed that nothing can pass through. Advanced GI and Immune disease soon follows. Until the inflammation is addressed the benefits of improved diet, or medications will be negligible!
Sadly, prednisone is the medical professions anti-inflammatory of choice. Like antibiotics, this is case where the treatment needs a remedy.
When GI and immune disease is treated with natural anti-inflammatories, healing soon follows. Simple GI disorders can be quickly remedied with just a few doses of SBOs.
SBOs are all natural non-dairy probiotics. They are more effective than dairy based probiotics. They are essential to maintain or restore intestinal balance. If inflammation is involved, it must first be resolved before the SBOs can be effective.

Some people, it seems, are endowed with a healthy immune system. They never seem to get sick and, if they do get the odd cold, they continue their daily routine and snap out of it in no time flat. Then you see others who barely have to hear the word ‘flu or see someone blowing their nose and bam, they’ve got it!
Is it all in the head? Are you born with a strong immune system to fight off disease? Can you do something about it, if you’re not? Anyway, what does it mean to have immunity? Well, a very simple explanation is that there are basically two types: active and passive immunity.
The definition of “immune” is that your body is so strong and resistant to any disease that you will not succumb to it.
Active immunity is considered to be long-lasting and tends to be life-long. If you’re in this category then, whenever you’re exposed to a disease organism, your immune system will instantly start to produce antibodies to that disease. Furthermore, if you should come into contact with that disease in the future, your immune system will identify it and immediately fight it off with the stored antibodies.
Passive immunity is not inherent in your system. It is when you cannot produce enough antibodies to fight off disease, and get an external boost by injection, medication or nutritional supplements.
Healthy people with an active, innate immunity are usually referred to as being resistant to disease in general. The term immunity is usually applied to general protection against a specific organism. Even if you are generally healthy, you may from time to time need a boost in order to help fight off a virulent strain of a specific infection or virus. The more severe the disease producing organism, the more the passive immunity is applied.
The medical profession recommends boosting your inherent immunity with specific antibodies to fight off a potentially dangerous infection or virus.
A good digestion and healthy appetite are indicators of a strong immunity. “Getting better quickly is a better indicator of immune health,” says Dr Dennis Alexander, head of molecular immunology at the Babraham institute in Cambridge.
Immune globulin can be administered to provide immediate protection from specific health threats to those who have a severely impaired or suppressed immune system. For instance, some who may normally have fairly good resistance to disease suddenly realize that their system cannot handle the sudden onslaught of germs in the hospital.
Likewise, the body under stress, i.e. disease or sudden accident, is often not capable to fight off multiple vaccines in one shot.
Judging by the large numbers of people coping with disease, the human system is inherently fragile and cannot handle multiple onslaughts, like the ones discussed above.
Many believe that if you are generally healthy and look after your health, you will only have a mild version of what’s going around. “In truth, there’s no such thing as a normal immune system,” says Angus Dalgleish, professor of oncology at St George’s Hospital, London, who researches cancer vaccines. He says the system is naturally very variable.
The rise of allergies, auto-immune diseases (where the body attacks itself) and inflammatory bowel disease are all indicators of immune resistance performing under par.
Both types of acquired immunity respond to peptide sequences called antigens. Antigens help the acquired immune system recognize invading bacteria, viruses and other harmful organisms (pathogens).
Leftovers, non-organic foods, and foods laced with preservatives can severely tax the digestive system. This can, in turn, clog your circulation, and create a sluggish, compromised immune system.
Going to be late, working at night, irregular eating habits, sleeping during the day, and exposing the body to stress and fatigue can all affect the digestion and body rhythms and thus compromise your resistance.
Therefore, be good to yourself. Eating nutritiously and keeping an active, happy lifestyle will go a long way to boosting your immune system. Don’t worry; be happy because “a merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” (Prov. 17: 22)