How Lyme bacteria uses your immune system against you, and what to do about it!

tick_deer

Lyme disease is caused by a very versatile bacteria of the genus Borrelia. The most common species is Borrelia burgdorferi, but there are several others such as B garinii and B miyamotoi, which also cause relapsing fevers almost identical to Lyme Disease. Borrelia is able to use your immune system to help it infect you! Read on to find out how, and what you can do about it.

Our immune system has several divisions, just like our military has Air Force, Navy, Marines, Army, Coast Guard as its parts. Each serves a purpose in defense. In your immune system, a type of T-cell produces something called Gamma Interferon. This is an inflammatory molecule, something called a Cytokine. Normally, it’s produced to fight off viral or bacterial infections. Another part of your immune system, the complement system, produces antibodies that are keyed, just like a key to a lock, to the outer protein of an invading bacteria. This antibody response guides the immune system in what to kill by tagging it in this manner. It’s actually waaay more complicated, but this is essentially how it works.

Borrelia bacteria have the ability to produce (“express”) different proteins for outer shells. It has genetic coding (“vlsE cassette”) for many combinations of outer proteins. But, it can’t express those proteins without help. Researchers have proven that to succeed at infection, the bacteria requires the host to produce gamma interferon, which it uses to activate a different gene sequence and change its outer protein coating. Yes, that’s a bit like if the bank robber heard the APB and asked a passing police officer to help him change his trench coat and hat so that he didn’t match the description in the APB. Pretty strange, right? This has been extensively researched and proven as one of the critical mechanisms the bacteria uses to cause Lyme disease.

With that in mind, what would happen if you reduced the production of gamma interferon? Well, that has been looked at, and if this is done the bacteria can’t succeed at infecting because the immune system will kill it before it can hide. So, reducing inflammation, and specifically gamma interferon in addition to nf-kappa B, IL-17, and TNF alpha, helps the immune system. Those other cytokines I mentioned? they’re responsible for allowing brain infection and joint infection, as well as making you hurt all over.

Do we have anything that can inhibit these cytokines without harming the patient? yes, in fact, we do. Two critical ingredients, and some strategies:

  1. Curcumin inhibits all of these inflammatory cytokines, particularly gamma interferon.
  2. Andrographis, an herb, also is anti-inflammatory and inhibits cytokine production. It has been shown to inhibit gamma interferon
  3. CBD oil helps reduce inflammation as well
  4. Healthy and diverse gut bacteria help your immune system to produce IL-10 and IL-4, which reduce T-cell production of inflammatory cytokines.
  5. Avoiding things that cause inflammation, like those foods you’re sensitized to or excess sweets or deep fried foods, also helps reduce cytokine production

These four steps are critical to either helping antibiotics kill off a Lyme infection, or keeping it gone (because it forms biofilms, it doesn’t get 100% killed) or fighting it off when it comes back and antibiotics aren’t an option.

For more information about the best Lyme testing I’ve found, visit my Lyme testing page at LymeTest4u.com.

For curcumin, this is my current best recommendation: https://www.neurodoc4u.com/product-page/c3-curcumin-4-oz

Andrographis capsules: https://www.neurodoc4u.com/product-page/andrographis-paniculata-capsules

CBD oil: This is the 1000mg “good stuff”! https://www.neurodoc4u.com/product-page/cbd-oil-1000mg

If you’re interested in improving your gut bacteria, the process starts with seeing what’s there to work with. This is done through a stool sample you send to a lab. The one I recommend is uBiome. You can go to ubiome.com and order a Time Lapse kit. Use the discount code SYMBIONTFACTOR and you’ll save an additional 15%!

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Dr. Richard Matthews

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