Body Fitness Health

Monday, January 3, 2011

[AlternativeAnswers] American Red Cross Statement on XMRV and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

American Red Cross Statement on XMRV and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

National Headquarters
2025 E Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20006
_www.redcross.org_ (http://www.redcross.org/)

Contact: Public Affairs Desk
FOR MEDIA ONLY
_media@usa.redcross.org_ (mailto:media@usa.redcross.org)
Phone: (202) 303-5551

WASHINGTON, Friday, December 03, 2010 — At present, there are no specific
federal recommendations regarding deferral of individuals with Chronic
Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) or other diseases that have been associated with Murine
Leukemia Virus-related virus (XMRV) infection. Nevertheless, in the
interest of patient and donor safety, the American Red Cross will defer
indefinitely any donor who reveals during the donor interview that they have been
diagnosed with CFS.
XMRV infection has been associated in some studies with prostate cancer
and chronic fatigue syndrome, but at the present time these disease
associations have yet to be confirmed.
There is currently insufficient data to conclude that XMRV is transmitted
through blood transfusion. However, the National Heart, Lung and Blood
Institute (NHLBI) Task force is conducting research to determine the frequency
of the virus in the donor population, whether it is transfusion-transmitted,
and whether recipients become infected and develop the disease.
An AABB Interorganizational Task Force is charged with reviewing all
available data, making recommendations for further action to assess the risk of
XMRV transmission through blood transfusion, develop mitigation strategies
as needed, and to provide information for blood donors, recipients and the
public.
The AABB Taskforce released _Association Bulletin #10-03_
(http://www.aabb.org/resources/publications/bulletins/Pages/ab10-03.aspx) in June 2010,
_recommending_ (http://www.aabb.org/pressroom/Pages/cfsrecommendation.aspx)
that blood collecting organizations — through the use of donor education
_materials_
(http://www.aabb.org/resources/publications/bulletins/Pages/CFSeducationalresources.aspx) available at the donation site — actively discourage
potential donors who have ever been diagnosed by a physician with chronic
fatigue syndrome (CFS), also known as chronic fatigue and immune
dysfunction syndrome (CFIDS) or myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), from donating blood
or blood components. In addition, any donor with symptoms of CFS would be
deferred if, on the day of donation, they respond negatively to the question,
"Are you feeling well today?"
The Red Cross has implemented the AABB recommendations and has gone further
to implement indefinite deferral for donors who reveal a history of a
medical diagnosis of CFS.
_http://tiny.cc/2oibh_ (http://tiny.cc/2oibh)

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[AlternativeAnswers] Nervous system Lyme disease.

J R Coll Physicians Edinb. 2010 Sep;40(3):248-255.

Nervous system Lyme disease.

Halperin JJ.

Department of Neurosciences, Overlook Hospital, 99 Beauvoir Avenue, Summit,
New Jersey 07902, USA. john.halperin@atlantichealth.org.

Lyme disease, the multi-system infection caused by the tick-borne
spirochaete Borrelia burgdorferi, can involve the nervous system, most
commonly causing, alone or in combination, lymphocytic meningitis or
abnormalities of cranial or peripheral nerves, the latter most typically
presenting as a painful radicular syndrome. Diagnosis is based on
appropriately used, standard serological tests; in instances where the
central nervous system is involved, cerebrospinal fluid assessment for
organism-specific antibodies can be useful. Treatment with any of several
standard regimens of oral or parenteral antimicrobials is highly effective.
Prolonged treatment beyond four weeks is rarely if ever warranted, and
carries significant risk.

http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/elink.fcgi?dbfrom=pubmed&id=211
27770&retmode=ref&cmd=prlinks
PMID: 21127770 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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[AlternativeAnswers] Garlic Accelerates Red Blood Cell Turnover and Splenic Erythropoietic Gene Expre

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0015358

Garlic Accelerates Red Blood Cell Turnover and Splenic Erythropoietic Gene
Expression in Mice: Evidence for Erythropoietin-Independent Erythropoiesis

Bünyamin Akgül1,2, Kai-Wei Lin1, Hui-Mei Ou Yang1,3, Yen-Hui Chen1,4,
Tzu-Huan Lu1,3, Chien-Hsiun Chen1,3, Tateki Kikuchi1,4, Yuan-Tsong Chen1,3,
Chen-Pei D. Tu1,5*

Abstract

Garlic (Allium sativum) has been valued in many cultures both for its
health
effects and as a culinary flavor enhancer. Garlic's chemical complexity is
widely thought to be the source of its many health benefits, which include,
but are not limited to, anti-platelet, procirculatory, anti-inflammatory,
anti-apoptotic, neuro-protective, and anti-cancer effects. While a growing
body of scientific evidence strongly upholds the herb's broad and potent
capacity to influence health, the common mechanisms underlying these
diverse
effects remain disjointed and relatively poorly understood. We adopted a
phenotype-driven approach to investigate the effects of garlic in a mouse
model. We examined RBC indices and morphologies, spleen histochemistry, RBC
half-lives and gene expression profiles, followed up by qPCR and immunoblot
validation. The RBCs of garlic-fed mice register shorter half-lives than
the
control. But they have normal blood chemistry and RBC indices. Their
spleens
manifest increased heme oxygenase 1, higher levels of iron and bilirubin,
and presumably higher CO, a pleiotropic gasotransmitter. Heat shock genes
and those critical for erythropoiesis are elevated in spleens but not in
bone marrow. The garlic-fed mice have lower plasma erythropoietin than the
controls, however. Chronic exposure to CO of mice on garlic-free diet was
sufficient to cause increased RBC indices but again with a lower plasma
erythropoietin level than air-treated controls. Furthermore, dietary garlic
supplementation and CO treatment showed additive effects on reducing plasma
erythropoietin levels in mice. Thus, garlic consumption not only causes
increased energy demand from the faster RBC turnover but also increases the
production of CO, which in turn stimulates splenic erythropoiesis by an
erythropoietin-independent mechanism, thus completing the sequence of
feedback regulation for RBC metabolism. Being a pleiotropic
gasotransmitter,
CO may be a second messenger for garlic's other physiological effects.

Citation: Akgül B, Lin K-W, Ou Yang H-M, Chen Y-H, Lu T-H, et al. (2010)
Garlic Accelerates Red Blood Cell Turnover and Splenic Erythropoietic Gene
Expression in Mice: Evidence for Erythropoietin-Independent Erythropoiesis.
PLoS ONE 5(12): e15358. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0015358

Editor: Steven R. Ellis, University of Louisville, United States of America

Received: August 15, 2010; Accepted: November 15, 2010; Published:
December 29, 2010

Copyright: © 2010 Akgül et al. This is an open-access article distributed
under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the
original author and source are credited.

Funding: This work was supported by grants from the National Research
Program for Genomic Medicine, Taiwan Authority (National Genotyping Core,
NSC-95-3112-B-001-011 to YTC), and the Genomics and Proteomics Program,
Academia Sinica. C-PDT was supported by Academia Sinica and the National
Science Council (Taiwan Authority) during residence in Academia Sinica. The
funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision
to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests
exist.

* E-mail: unh@psu.edu

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