msb-0267 Diet of Worms

msb-0267 Diet of Worms

intro

Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

MSBPodcast is "not" any kind of a medical podcast.

It is by and for MSers.

Its purpose is to keep us entertained, to explain our symptoms, to remark on our discoveries, and to raise the general consciousness about our disease.

The path to illness is shadowy, murky and rough strewn.

The path to wellness is lit by the lamp of knowledge.

----

Feedback comes first, so...

The music this episode is all smalltalk about being small.

(But we have reached our fifty thousandth download. MDMHvonPA, Homer, Herrad, Shauna, [all people who have helped me in the past, the present,] myself and whoever else I manage to get on this podcast in the future have to be doing somethings right. :-)

Why should I waste your time with idle chitchat.

"Adelante la música"

---- "SmallTalk" by: "Jeso" http://www.jeso.nl/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: "charles at MSBPodcast.com"

Check out one of the most innovative "sites" by one of the most innovative MSer personalities I have seen in a while. [ http://www.brainangles.zoomshare.com/ ]

---- "Red Smalltalk and the Lava Rose" by: "The Host" http://thehostband.com/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: "charles (at) MSBPodcast.com"

---- "Stay Small" by: "The Receiving End Of Sirens" http://www.merchdirect.net/TripleCrownRecords/CDs/The_Receiving_End_Of_Sirens_The_Earth_Sings_Mi_Fa_Mi_CD?productid=8273

"Thesis:"

Some days I can be mercifully quiet. (Now we have "Shauna MacKinnon" to listen to. :-)

---- "When Did You Get So Small?" by: "Todd Lerner" http://www.songforfree.com/

"Synthesis:"

I have mentioned in passing, findings researchers have made about parasites and MS. I even podcasted about it on Charles' MSBPodcast. So here (as "Paul Harvey" [ http://www.radiohof.org/news/paulharvey.html ] would say) is the "Rest of the Story".

There is something known as the hygiene hypothesis. Basically, immune system related illnesses such as allergies are more prevalent in families with fewer children than in large families. The fewer children in a family, the less opportunity a child has of becoming exposed to infectious agents, and that in turn results in a child's immune system remaining "weak" and the child more susceptible to illness or disease. So more siblings lessens your chances of developing allergies.

There has been a steady rise in incidence in the developed world of allergies since the industrial age. And there has also been a steady rise in the incidence of auto-immune diseases, like MS and Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

The hygiene hypothesis has now been expanded to include bacteria and parasites. And the more siblings you have, the greater your chance of exposure to bacteria and parasites. (Can you see where I'm going with this?)

Apparently exposure to bacteria and/or parasites stimulates development of regulatory T cells.
"To use a rough analogy, an unbridled immune system (without regulatory T cells) has the dynamic of a rowdy, unchaperoned beer party. It is likely to overreact to slight or non-existent insults (analogous to allergic disease) and may even attack members of its own party (analogous to autoimmune disease). The role of the T regulatory cells of the immune system is similar to that of the bouncer, keeping the beer party in check." Great explanation from Wikipedia.

A couple of years ago I was reading reports of the link between parasites and MS. And I also read Carl Zimmer's Book, "Parasite Rex", [ http://www.amazon.com/Parasite-Rex-Bizarre-Dangerous-Creatures/dp/074320011X ] which talked of the rise of auto-immune disease since the Industrial Age. As we have gotten "cleaner" by improving sanitation and hygiene, we have gotten sicker. You've probably heard all the furor about the overuse of antibiotics and antibiotic soaps. As we kill off all bacteria, both good and bad, with these things, we leave ourselves open to attack by adapted bacteria, super-bugs as it were.

There are studies being conducted using parasites to determine how helpful, if at all, they are to folks with MS. The nifty thing about these little parasites is that it looks like only a handful is needed for a beneficial result. And they don't reproduce while they're in you (they seem to want more romantic locales to do that). So once you get over the gross-out factor, it's not such a bad thing.

---- "Small Bodies" by: "Magnetic Four" http://www.magneticfour.net/

"Conclusion:"

I hope you enjoyed that piece by "Shauna MacKinnon".

Personally, I'll pass on the parasites, but I would not be averse to a, uh, a "symbiote" [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiote_(comics) ]. [Then again, seeing what happened to Spiderman's...] :-).

I'm looking forwards to Wednesdays' shows with "Shauna MacKinnon".

---- "Small" by: "Amy Abdou" http://www.amyabdou.com/

Outro