This post does not deal with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome alone, but also deals with any disease that impacts the mind – for example, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Dementia, Multiple Sclerosis etc. If there are neurological issues occurring, the items below may help.

Minocycline

Minocycline  is usually thought to be an antibiotic, or perhaps an anti-inflammatory. Often it is mis-assumed that anti-inflammatory means neuroprotective. This is incorrect. There are a variety of reasons and mechanisms involved, but that’s an academic topic. This 2010 abstract summarizes it nicely:

ABSTRACT

Minocycline is a clinically available antibiotic and anti-inflammatory drug that also demonstrates neuroprotective properties in a variety of experimental models of neurological diseases. There have thus far been more than 300 publications on minocycline neuroprotection, including a growing number of human studies. Our objective is to critically review the biological basis and translational potential of this action of minocycline on the nervous system. [ 2010 Prospects for minocycline neuroprotection]

The full text is available here. The conclusion state:
“Studies to date have clearly established that minocycline exerts neuroprotective effects but have also shown that the actions of this drug are complex, and that its administration can, under certain circumstances, also have neurotoxic consequences. More studies, both clinical and preclinical, and both combinatorial and sequential strategies, should be carried out to ascertain the therapeutic window and the indications for which minocycline could be useful, effective, and safe.”

Doxycycline (a member of the same family) is also reported as a neuroprotective [*], as is Rifampicin [*], Rapamycin, Ceftriaxone, Beta-lactam antibiotics. All of these require a prescription and judgement of risk versus benefit.

Food Derived Neuroprotection

There are several herbs, spices, etc that can be described as” nutraceuticals derived from such spices as turmeric, red pepper, black pepper, licorice, clove, ginger, garlic, coriander, and cinnamon target inflammatory pathways, thereby may prevent neurodegenerative diseases” 2011, Neuroprotection by spice-derived nutraceuticals: you are what you eat! (Full text is here)

Many of those listed above, have been a regular part of my past treatment for CFS, with significant impact from each, especially licorice and turmeric (with black pepper).

Turmeric

Turmeric (Curcumin) is a common kitchen herb that has 60+ articles describing it’s impact. With a reasonable summary in this 2012 article: Multiple antidepressant potential modes of action of curcumin: a review of its anti-inflammatory, monoaminergic, antioxidant, immune-modulating and neuroprotective effects.

Ginger

Ginger is another kitchen spice with only 15 studies.

Other Non-Prescription Neuroprotection

In general I will point to a sample study on PubMed. If you know of others with backing PubMed studies, please add a comment (with link to an article)

Piracetam

Piracetam was easily available over the internet and has recently disappear from sites like Amazon, although some smaller sites still sells it.  It is prescription is some parts of Europe. There are over 200 articles describing it. For example, this 2012 article, Piracetam and vinpocetine ameliorate rotenone-induced Parkinsonism in rats.

Olive Leaf Extract

Olive Leaf Extract has only 5 studies, mainly dealing with stroke, for example: 2012 The neuroprotection effect of pretreatment with olive leaf extract on brain lipidomics in rat stroke model.

Alpha-Lipoic Acid

Neuroprotection of lipoic acid treatment promotes angiogenesis and reduces the glial scar formation after brain injury.

Ashwagandha

Attenuation of oxidative damage-associated cognitive decline by Withania somnifera in rat model of streptozotocin-induced cognitive impairment.

Boswellia

Incensole acetate: a novel neuroprotective agent isolated from Boswellia carterii.

D-Ribose

This sugar was recently found to help CFS, it’s neuroprotective aspect may be part of the positive response. A sample study, D-ribose improves cardiac contractility and hemodynamics, and reduces expression of c-fos in the hippocampus during sustained slow ventricular tachycardia in rats.

Neem

Deoxygedunin, a natural product with potent neurotrophic activity in mice.

Tulsi

The science behind sacredness of Tulsi (Ocimum sanctum Linn.).

 Remember Each have different mechanisms and other effects!

Antibiotics will usually impact gut bacteria (for better or for the worst) and may have other side effects. The same applies to many of the other items, like Olive Leaf Extract and Licorice.

Consult with your knowledgeable medical professional always

Dr. J. asked me to look at any relationship of microflora (gut bacteria) with hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism. Since hypothyroidism is associated with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I suspect there is — the question is whether anyone has studied it and published any papers on it. As usual, I restrict myself to PubMed source. – many of the studies were not human based… we take what we can find…

• Diet appears to impact thryroid size.[2010 Study], with a connection to Phytase and it’s role with the availability of phosphorus in the body.
• ” it should never be forgotten that gut communities contain important metabolic niches inhabited by species with highly specific metabolic capability.” with certain metabolites being supplied by only one or two species..[2008 Study]
• “Thyroid hormones can therefore have vitamin-like effects and, in conjunction with vitamin D, and possibly with other steroids, may be more aptly termed vitamones” [1997 Study]
• “The phytosterol-containing treatments induced the increased activity of thyroid glands, as evident by elevated levels of serum total thyroxine, total triiodothyronine, and free triiodothyronine.” [2013 Study]
• Helicobacter pylori decreases the ability to absorb thyroid hormones [2011 Study]
• Gram Negative bacteria produces lipopolysaccharides which regulates thyroid and pituitary functions [2010 Study]
•  Streptococcus pneumoniae infection reduces thyroid levels[2009 Study]
• Enterobacteriaceae (Yersinia enterocolitica) has been implicated with increased risk
•  Enterococcus faecium (probiotic) modulates “the activation of genes selected for functional interaction between the hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid(HPT) axis and the melanocortin and the endocannabinoid systems [2011 Study]

So the answer is, some thyroid dysfunction is associated with gut bacteria, especially with the ability to absorb thyroid hormones. We know that H Pylori should be tested for, and eliminated if found. We do not know the good and bad bacterias.  There seems to be more information on raising thyroid levels (by diet, eliminating H. Pylori) then in reducing it. For high levels, diet changes could help — but the path is not clear.

Postscript: During this research I came across some interesting articles on antinutritional factors which I suspect are relevant to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

• “high levels of dietary trypsin inhibitors from soybeans, kidney beans, or other grain legumes can cause substantial reductions in protein and amino acid digestibilities… , the presence of high levels of tannins in cereals, such as sorghum, and grain legumes, such as fababean (Vicia faba L.), can result in significantly reduced protein and amino acid digestibilities”[*][2012 Study]

With this round of CFS, I have been using a Saturated O2 meter regularly that report heart rate. I have noticed that my heart rate has been much higher than normal (nurses have also noticed it). Fast heart rate is referred to as a tachycardia (think of a car’s Tach meter and heart (Cardia)). It has not concerned me because it is a common symptom of CFS.

Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome is a common characteristics of CFS. Recently I started taking Prescript-Assist, a very different probiotic that I covered in prior posts.

What I noticed the other evening was that my pulse rate had suddenly dropped by almost 30%. The next morning, it was back to the earlier high range. Tonight, I took a reading every few hours after taking Prescript-Assist and there was again a drop off of the high heart rate. This suggests that some metabolite being produced by the probiotics in Prescript-Assist may be causing the drop, OR, the probiotics temporarily suppressed other bacteria and their metabolites that produce the tachycardia.

Doing a little digging found that Clostridium septicum is one species associated with tachycardia and another CFS symptom, hypotension (low blood pressure). While this species is unlikely to be the one involved, it does illustrate the feasibility of one or more gut bacteria being responsible for both tachycardia and hypotension.

My hope is that the length of normalization will increase daily as the probiotics become better established.

Recently, there have seen several interesting articles finding that life expectancy increases  for a while as you BMI increase beyond the ideal, and then decrease.  This is very old news for me, as a statistician, I have seen this in actuary tables since the 1980’s  (tables used to determine insurance premiums — an industry where statistics trumps beliefs, usually).

Body mass index is defined as the individual’s body mass divided by the square of his or her height. As a physicist, I can’t help but notice that we happen to live in at least a three dimensional world (adding time, makes it four dimensional). Additionally, politics have had it impact by changing the levels of overweight based on belief or corporate agenda (i.e. if more people are overweight or obese, then there is more opportunity to prescribe or sell items to fix what may be a non-existent issue). For more back ground, see this Wikipedia article:

The problem of the non-actuary approach is that while you may find increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes; decreased risks of other diseases are not considered. In other words — a blinkered view.

If we assume that BMI 25.is ideal for a 1.6 meter individual, we find a weight of 72 kg. If we instead use BMI-3 or Mass/ (height x height x height), the equivalent number would be 14.655. For a 1.5 m person, the same BMI-3 suggests a weight of 49kg. For a 2 m person, BMI-3 suggests 136 kg.

BMI 25

In other words, shorter people can carry 16% more weight, and tall people must be 20% leaner. So on BMI, I would come in as 30, but with BMI-3, it’s 15.8. Or  30/25 = 20% above with BMI versus 8% above with BMI-3.

The term “evidence based science” is often tossed around, the unfortunate termed that is missing is “biased”, i.e. “biased evidence based science”. The majority of studies are not reviewed by hard-core independent statisticians.

In terms of studies for CFS and chronic lyme, studies that found no benefit from antibiotics often suffer from this type of bias. Antibiotics are part of a complex regime when remission has been reported — taking them in isolation does not “prove” they do not work — it shows only that they do not work when applied in a naive manner.