2015 has certainly been an interesting year for sure. Some promising research is starting to emerge & who knows, may lead to advances in testing & treatment of both acute & chronic cases of Lyme disease. A mass of conferences have been taking place including traditional, alternative & integrative therapies. As a patient it can’t come soon enough. Let’s hope forward momentum can continue for the sake of all the sick patients out there who’s only desire is to get better & lead a normal or near normal life as can be.
I continually update our conferences section (see Lyme conf in right hand menu) & would like to draw attention to the following new events coming up..
Belgium – a look at testing, traditional med & alternative therapies, Antwerp, Sep 12th & 13th: http://lyme-conference.bbow-apso.be/
Lyme Disease Action – focus on persistence, Univ Cambridge, Sep 12th: http://www.lymediseaseaction.org.uk/what-we-are-doing/conferences/
Cowden/Nutramedix Workshop, Copenhagen, Oct 4th Denmark (discounts on up to 5 protocols avail – free admission, reservations needed to secure place): http://www.nutramedix.com/downloads/Flyers/CopenhagenWorkshopInfoFlyer.pdf
Gresham Centre – lab specialists, Lyme docs & patients awareness day & book launch, London, Oct 10th: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/suffering-the-silence-living-experiences-of-lyme-disease-chronic-illness-tickets-17659779877
ILADS – Lyme Fundamentals Oct 15th Florida, USA followed by ILADS International Conf Oct 16-18th: http://www.ilads.org/lyme_programs/ilads-conferences.php
Lyme Disease Assoc/Columbia Univ, Lyme & Other Tick-Borne Diseases: Science Bridging the Gap, Nov 14-15th, Rhode Island USA: http://www.lymediseaseassociation.org/index.php/general-information-2015
Assoc Nutritional Medicine – focus on chronic conditions, Nov 15th, London: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lifting-the-veil-part-ii-chronic-disease-whats-really-going-on-tickets-17390619812
Beyond Lyme and Other Chronic Illnesses: Reclaiming our Health and Well-Being with Dr Horowitz author of Why Can’t I Get Better, Massachusetts, Dec 4-6th USA: http://kripalu.org/program/view/BLOI-151/beyond_lyme_and_other_chronic_illnesses_reclaiming
If you are an alternative practitioner we have an open letter available on our site (the first part incs conferences mentioned above, the main part of the article is further down the page at: https://ticktalkireland.wordpress.com/2015/02/13/open-letter-to-herbalists/)
Some new research coming out focuses on persistence of infection – the promising thing is, not only are they looking at why borrelia is persistent they are also making progress on finding which FDA approved drugs can be used to combat it. Some of the new research incs the following:
Identification of new compounds with high activity against stationary phase Borrelia burgdorferi from the NCI compound collection:
Emerging Microbes & Infections (2015) 4, e31; doi:10.1038/emi.2015.31
Published online 3 June 2015 Jie Feng, Wanliang Shi, Shuo Zhang and Ying Zhang
We identified the top 30 new active hits, including the top six anthracycline antibiotics daunomycin 3-oxime, dimethyldaunomycin, daunomycin, NSC299187, NSC363998 and nogalamycin, along with other compounds, including prodigiosin, mitomycin, nanaomycin and dactinomycin, as having excellent activity against B. burgdorferi stationary phase culture. The anthracycline or anthraquinone compounds, which are known to have both anti-cancer and antibacterial activities, also had high activity against growing B. burgdorferi with low minimum inhibitory concentration.
http://www.nature.com/emi/journal/v4/n6/full/emi201531a.html
Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease, forms drug-tolerant persister cells.
American Soc Microbiology 26 May 2015, doi: 10.1128/AAC.00864-15
Bijaya Sharma1, Autumn V. Brown1, Nicole E. Matluck1, Linden T. Hu2 and Kim Lewis
Daptomycin, a membrane-active bactericidal antibiotic, killed stationary phase cells, but not persisters. Mitomycin C, an anti-cancer agent that forms adducts with DNA, killed persisters and eradicated both growing and stationary cultures of B. burgdorferi. Finally, we examined the ability of pulse-dosing an antibiotic to eliminate persisters. After addition of ceftriaxone, the antibiotic was washed away, surviving persisters were allowed to resuscitate, and antibiotic was added again. Four pulse-doses of ceftriaxone killed persisters, eradicating all live bacteria in the culture.
http://aac.asm.org/content/early/2015/05/20/AAC.00864-15.abstract
Drug Combinations against Borrelia burgdorferi Persisters In Vitro: Eradication Achieved by Using Daptomycin, Cefoperazone and Doxycycline
Jie Feng, Paul G. Auwaerter, Ying Zhang
PLOS Published: March 25, 2015 / DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0117207
Of studied drugs, daptomycin was the common element in the most active regimens when combined with doxycycline plus either beta-lactams (cefoperazone or carbenicillin) or an energy inhibitor (clofazimine). Daptomycin plus doxycycline and cefoperazone eradicated the most resistant microcolony form of B. burgdorferi persisters and did not yield viable spirochetes upon subculturing, suggesting durable killing that was not achieved by any other two or three drug combinations.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0117207
Persistence will be the topic of discussion in LDA (UK) conf coming up at the Univ of Cambridge (see conf list above or in right hand menu for more details).
To see loads more studies on persistence check out our links section on the site at: https://ticktalkireland.wordpress.com/facebook-contents-page/chronic-lyme/
A promising new test is being developed in Europe called Hilysens, phase 2 of development is now under way, for more details check out: http://hilysensproject.eu/index.php
I have recently updated our Western Blot Comparison sheet to include Porton Down UK – the file can be downloaded at: https://ticktalkireland.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/wb-comparison-by-jenny-update-2015.xls
For many studies & a look at other tests available check out our section on testing at: https://ticktalkireland.wordpress.com/lyme-links/testing/
Finally, a reminder of who’s to blame for our ills! Here some pics of ticks as a visual reminder to watch out for, although some docs feel that Lyme disease isn’t a problem in Ireland sadly the truth is that there are many more out there than people realise. From our survey of 104 people up to May 2014 When asked which country the tick-borne infection took place, 61% of our respondents were infected in Ireland and 22% in North America. The remaining 17% listed Europe as their source of infection.
If a doctor was to believe that Lyme can only be contracted in America then they would miss 78% of our respondents who were infected in Europe with the majority getting sick after tick bites here in Ireland. For a look at the full results of our surveys check out: http://www.ticktalkireland.org/surveys.html
These are still ongoing & new results will be published towards the end of this year. Please also note our ‘Tick Talking while You’re Walking’ survey where members of the public report in ticks being seen (no guarantee that these are infected ticks but does show where clusters are) – Counties Galway, Kerry, Wicklow & Cork continually show high in the rankings although it’s worth mentioning that many parts of Ireland are reporting ticks, even in gardens & being brought into houses by pets. Here’s a few photos of ticks being reported over the last few years:
Ticks found on a hunting dog in County Meath Jun 2015
Tick found at Crodaun Park Sept 2014
Ticks from a Deer Alliance awareness session Nov 2011
Ticks found at Portumna Forest Sept 2011
& Portumna again in 2012..
For more tick images check out our main site at: http://www.ticktalkireland.org/ticks.html
Meanwhile, studies relevant to tick-borne diseases in Ireland can be found at: https://ticktalkireland.wordpress.com/irish-related-studies/
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