Medicine Hemorrhagic virus also triggers ms – common herpes virus can trigger a fatal autoimmune reaction

Half a disease the virus that causes it will probably also trigger ms disease.

Approximately 95 percent of the population becomes infected with the Epstein-Barr virus (HHV-4, EBV), one of the herpes viruses, by young adulthood.

The infection is asymptomatic in young children. In teens and adults, however, it follows mononucleosis i.e. pus disease. The throat of the sufferer becomes inflamed, the lymph nodes swell and the fever rises.

Ms disease, on the other hand, is an autoimmune disease that strikes the brain and spinal cord. It makes it difficult to exercise. It affects more than ten thousand people in Finland.

Thus, the majority of Epstein-Barr virus recipients never develop MS.

Fresh however, studies suggest that Epstein-Barr virus would be a necessary and triggering factor in the development of ms disease.

Harvard University researchers visited the epidemiologist Alberto Ascherion led through extensive longitudinal research. It tracked down ten million recruits in the U.S. Army in 1993. The follow-up lasted twenty years.

Of the ten million newcomers, 955 developed MS. Epstein-Barr virus 32-fold increased risk of disease. No other virus increased the risk of ms disease.

MS a total of 801 patients had long-term blood samples examined. They were compared twice to such a large group that did not get sick.

Of these 801 ms patients, all but one had antibodies to Epstein-Barr virus in their blood before illness. Antibody positivity 27-fold increased the risk of developing ms disease.

The most interesting group were those who did not have antibodies to Epstein-Barr virus in their blood at the beginning of the follow-up.

Of those with later MS, 35 had no Epstein-Barr antibodies at baseline. Of these, 34 of them became infected with the virus before the onset of MS.

In the control group, which was Epstein-Barr negative at the beginning of the follow-up, only slightly more than half received the virus during the follow-up. The development of antibodies at follow-up increased the risk of ms disease 32-fold.

Ms disease research professor of neuroimmunology Pentti Tienari The University of Helsinki considers the discovery to be historic. He believes it shows that the Epstein-Barr virus is very central in the underlying ms disease.

“The U.S. military cohort is well known and closely monitored, which increases the reliability of the results. The observed risk ratio is in the order of 30. This is in line with previous results from more mixed data. It is at least ten times higher than other known risk factors for ms disease, ”says Tienari.

The study also showed that the antibodies to the Epstein-Barr virus were in the blood before the molecular releases caused by nerve cell damage caused by ms disease.

“The antibodies to Epstein-Barr virus and the antibodies associated with nerve cell damage are very similar, causing an‘ egg or chicken ’dilemma. It’s hard to know which one really came first, the Epstein-Barrin virus or the cell damage, ”says Tienari.

“Studies in this regard have not been able to show a cause-and-effect relationship. However, the aim here was to show that the Epstein-Barr virus precedes ms disease, ”says Tienari.

Although the evidence of Tienar is convincing, he still sees a theoretical gap in it.

The development of Ms often takes a few years before diagnosis.

In this case, it is possible that the Epstein-Barr virus previously detected in a patient diagnosed with ms is a false positive. It may be the result of early cell damage in ms disease that did not yet cause detectable symptoms.

The study was published Scienceand its first author was an epidemiologist at Harvard University Kjetil Bjornevik.

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“This is the first time it has been possible to show in detail how a virus triggers ms disease.”

Epstein-Barrin the virus confuses the body’s immune system, attacking its own cells.

Stanford University medical researchers now claim to have found a reason why this is happening.

It is related to the aforementioned similarity between Epstein-Barr virus antibodies and neuronal damage antibodies.

About one in four ms patients have antibodies in their blood that bind to the surface protein of the Epstein-Barr virus as well as to a specific human neuronal envelope protein (GlialCAM) in the brain and spinal cord.

These proteins are very similar in structure.

“When the immune defense attacks the Epstein-Barr virus, it also attacks the glialCAM protein in the myelin sheath,” professor of immunology and rheumatology William Robinson says Stanford University on the news page.

Usually, nerve impulses pass through the myelin sheath from one nerve cell to another. When the myelin sheath is damaged, the nerve message is disrupted. It leads to sensory disturbances and muscle weakness in ms disease.

“This is the first time it has been possible to show in detail how the virus triggers ms disease,” says Stanford University professor of neurology Lawrence Steinman says the university on the news page.

The study was pre-published in a scientific journal In nature.

Tienari considers Natura’s research in terms of molecular accuracy to be historic. However, it has the above-mentioned “egg or chicken” problem.

“The study does not show whether the antibodies detected in the blood are a reaction to Epstein-Barr virus or the body’s own proteins. This is a classic immunological dilemma. After a person becomes ill, it is no longer known whether the antibodies are a cause or a consequence, ”says Tienari.

Together, these studies still tell a strong story that Epstein-Barr virus is behind MS.

But is there any use for the information? The majority of people get the Epstein-Barr virus, but only a fraction get it.

Heredity is also affected. Neurologist George Ebers discovered as early as the 1980s that identical twins had ten times more often both ms than non-identical twins.

According to Tienar, heredity alone does not explain the risk of becoming ill. Susceptibility to MS is about one in ten, but one in two hundred get the disease.

One the explanation could be that there are variants of the Epstein-Barr virus, some of which are more susceptible to ms disease.

“At Korona, we know that different variants cause different diseases. Similarly, in measles, certain variants are associated with nervous system damage, ”says Tienari.

His group in Meilahti, Helsinki, has sequenced dna and rna from the blood and spinal fluid cells of both ms patients and healthy controls.

The aim is, among other things, to determine whether the Epstein-Barr virus carried by patients and controls is the same or different.

Could you vaccine against Epstein-Barr virus to prevent ms disease? Vaccines work differently for different diseases, Tienari points out.

Epstein-Barr virus infection in a child is usually asymptomatic. In early adulthood, it causes mononucleosis, or pus disease. If the infection is acquired in early adulthood, the likelihood of ms disease is twice or three times that of a childhood infection.

“If children are given a vaccine that has not been very successful, Epstein-Barr infections in childhood may decrease but increase in early adulthood.”

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