A large and ever-growing body of research shows that significant blood vessel abnormalities in multiple sclerosis patients play an important role in causing MS.
The autoimmune theory of MS has been widely accepted but never proven. In fact, according to MS experts an auto-antigen has never been identified. Auto-antigens are markers on cells in the body that the immune system attacks when they shouldn’t. Experts agree that the immune system is involved in MS, but they have never proven that the immune system attacks nerve tissue for no apparent reason.
Research examining blood vessel irregularities in MS patients suggests that malfunction of the blood vessels in MS patients plays an important role in the development of MS and can lead to specific vascular signs and symptoms, thereby contributing to a new type of MS called vascular MS.
The review entitled Vascular multiple sclerosis: addressing the pathogenesis, genetics, pro-angiogenic factors, and vascular abnormalities, along with the role of vascular intervention pulls together information about the role of endothelial (cells that line blood vessels) dysfunction, blood brain barrier (BBB) disruption and immune cell infiltration into the central nervous system (CNS). All of these insights help explain the complex interplay between vascular disease and the development of vascular MS.
Another study entitled Vascular Disease in Patients with Multiple Sclerosis: A Review concluded that vascular factors may be the first triggers for the start of neurological disease and later neurological flares of the disease. The high degree of comorbidity between vascular disease and multiple sclerosis suggests that vascular disease could play an important role in causing neuronal dysfunction or degeneration in MS.
The 2020 study, Evaluating the Risk of Macrovascular Events and Mortality Among People With Multiple Sclerosis in England, found that people diagnosed with multiple sclerosis were associated with a 350% increased risk of all-cause mortality and a 150% higher risk for cardiovascular disease mortality.
This large study of 84,823 people with or without multiple sclerosis, was controlled for factors such as age, sex, race/ethnicity, income, employment, education, health and disability, crime, barriers to housing and services, and living environment, smoking status, diagnoses of type 2 diabetes and clinical depression, treated for cholesterol, oral anti-diabetic, anti-platelet, anticoagulant, and treated for high blood pressure
Participants in the study were also required to be diagnosed with MS for one year and the researchers included the number of visits to primary care practitioners in the year before the study year.
Even when controlling for all these factors, they still found that MS is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease that is not merely due to traditional vascular risk factors.
Vascular abnormalities in MS
The following are well-established vascular abnormalities in multiple sclerosis:
- endothelial dysfunction – abnormal and / or poor drainage of blood from veins
- increased risk for ischemic disease (impaired blood flow)
- hypoxia (decreased oxygen in the blood) and inflammation, which could be due to reduced blood flow
- blood brain barrier (BBB) disruption – leaky BBB
- immune cells moving into the central nervous system across the leaky lining of the blood vessels in the CNS.
It is believed that a breach of the BBB is critical in the formation of demyelinating lesions. Activated monocytes and T immune cells move into the CNS only after there is abnormal flow of blood into the brain from cells that line blood vessels due to a breakdown of the BBB. This is a proven process in multiple sclerosis.[i]
A vein is present at the center of most MS lesions
Early studies have reported that most MS demyelinating lesions are centered around small veins. This was later confirmed by MRI and is referred to as central vein sign (CVS), where a vein appears as a dot or thin line that is located in the center or runs partially or entirely through a lesion.
Most infections of the central nervous system (CNS) originate from blood vessels.
MS and Malaria
From the late 1800s to the early 1900s, several practitioners and researchers believed that MS was caused by the malaria parasite. During a malaria outbreak, MS patients were treated for malaria along with other US citizens. MS patients showed remarkable improvements in their health when treated with malaria drugs. These experts believed that MS patients suffered from a chronic cerebral malaria that caused micro-bleeds and subsequent lesions in the brain. They also discovered a ring of iron deposited around the outer edge of the lesions which they believed originated from the destruction of red blood cells that entered the brain as a consequence of the microbleeds. They stated that it was difficult to detect chronic cerebral malaria parasites with available tests, but they were able to observe these parasites in CNS microbleeds.
CLICK HERE To learn more about their discoveries.
Malaria and cardiovascular abnormalities
Malaria’s effect on the cardiovascular system is the result of infected RBCs sticking to the cells that line small blood vessels (capillaries and venules) and the immune system’s response to this. This is characteristic of malaria infections.[ii]
Cardiovascular complications associated with malaria may include:
- reduced cardiac output
- conduction disorders
- myocarditis
- pericarditis
- arrhythmias
- cardiac tamponade – abnormal fluid accumulates in the heart compressing it, resulting in decreased cardiac output and shock
- heart failure.
CLICK HERE to learn more about the increased risk of heart disease in MS.
Similarities between MS and chronic malaria
1. Red blood cell aggregation
The aggregation or clumping of RBCs greatly impacts blood flow through the cardiovascular system. RBCs clump together when there is an increase in adhesion proteins on the surface of these cells. This can impair microcirculation and cause increased adherence of the RBCs to the cells that line blood vessels.[iii]
Malaria can cause a significant increase in the aggregation of RBCs as the number of parasites that infect the RBCs increases. A decrease in the aggregation of RBCs occurs after treatment with the drug ASAQ on day four, with the RBCs tending towards normal again.[iv]
Increased RBC aggregation has also been reported in MS patients.[v]
2. Platelet abnormalities
Platelets play a role in inflammation and immunity,[vi] in the formation of blood clots that block blood vessels and in the process that stops bleeding to promote healing.[vii] They do not directly cause RBC aggregation, but they influence blood clot formation in the brain micro-circulation and their increased presence can reduce blood supply to an area of the brain.[viii]
Platelets are abundant in MS lesions.[ix] [x] [xi]
Researchers have observed increased platelet adhesiveness (stickiness) in MS patients when compared to people suffering from other neurological diseases. Furthermore, the level of adhesiveness was found to be higher in patients with more active MS. More than 90% of the MS patients with an acute MS flare showed abnormal platelet adhesiveness, compared to only 20% of MS patients who were stable.[xii]
Several decades ago, it was observed that platelets may become activated during MS. Platelet abnormalities such as low platelet count are 25 times more common in patients with MS compared to the general population.
Platelets play a role in controlling malaria parasite density and platelet count is negatively associated with the malaria parasite load.
3. Anemia
Malaria is linked with profound anemia, which can cause cardiac stress, left ventricular hypertrophy and can also lead to acute renal failure.[xiii]
MS patients have a significantly higher risk of low hemoglobin or low blood iron. [xiv] [xv] [xvi]
Anemia increased the risk of developing MS by 200%.[xvii]
4. RBC abnormalities
Low RBC count
The malaria parasite enters the blood from the bite of an infected mosquito and subsequently infects RBCs. At the end of that infection cycle, the red blood cell ruptures which causes a decrease in the number of RBCs and in severe cases, it can cause severe anemia.
Fatigue is the single most common symptom of multiple sclerosis affecting between 75 to 95% of MS patients. A low red blood cell count causing anemia is one contributor of fatigue. Anemia is more common in MS than in the general public.[xviii]
The number of red blood cells in MS patients correlated inversely with the MS EDSS survey, meaning that a lower RBC count was associated with increased disability in MS. A higher platelet count was linked to decreased hemoglobin.[xix]
RBC deformability
Red blood cell deformability is the RBC’s ability to change its shape to the ever changing blood flow conditions thereby minimizing its resistance to flow.
Increased RBC distribution width (RDW)
RDW is a test that measures the size and volume of RBCs that influences the cells’ ability to adapt its shape to changing flow conditions (deformability) and thus reduce its resistance to normal blood flow. One study found that relapsing remitting MS (RRMS) patients have increased RDW compared to healthy people, which can alter RBC deformability in MS.
Elevated RDW was found to be positively related to EDSS scores, meaning that larger RBCs in MS was associated with increased disability.[xx]
The variation in RDW is attributed to RBCs infected with the malaria parasite, which causes the cells to become enlarged. The increase in size is followed by the rupture of the infected red cells.[xxi]
As the number and size of RBCs are impacted in both MS and in malaria, it is possible to also observe abnormal MCV, MCH and MCHC blood test results for both MS and malaria.
5. Reduced blood flow
In malaria, reduced blood flow leads to the obstruction of small vessels. Infected sticky RBCs clump together in small vessels causing a narrowing of the inside of vessels. The physical obstruction caused by these sticky parasitized RBCs is made worse due to decreased RBC deformability and adhesive forces between infected RBCs (autoagglutination) and between infected and uninfected RBCs (rosetting).
6. High Blood Pressure
High blood pressure can affect up to 30% of MS patients.[xxii]
Malaria exposure, especially repeated malaria episodes and severe malaria in childhood, has been reported to be a contributing risk factor for the development of hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases.[xxiii]
Hypertension is a risk factor for severe malaria disease in adults.[xxiv]
7. Heart failure
Malaria infection is linked with a 30% raised risk of heart failure. A 2019 Danish study reported, “We have seen an increase in the incidence of malaria cases and what is intriguing is we have seen the same increase in cardiovascular disease in the same regions.”[xxv]
MS is associated with an almost 300% increase in the risk for death where most of the data suggests this is due to cardiovascular disease. Several large studies show a significantly higher risk of ischemic heart disease, stroke or heart failure in MS.[xxvi]
Two large studies revealed that MS was associated with an increased risk of hospital admission for ischemic stroke, myocardial infarction, and heart failure in the first year of diagnosis, and that the increased risk for heart failure persisted over time, suggesting that early diagnosis of cardiac dysfunction in patients with MS might be crucial in order to start preventive measures.[xxvii]
8. Malaria suppresses immune function
Plasmodium, the parasite that causes malaria, impairs the ability of specific immune cells to mount an efficient immune response to infection. This is likely the reason why patients with malaria are susceptible to a wide range of other infections and fail to respond to several vaccines.
Malaria affects cellular (T cells) and humoral responses (the production of antibodies by B cells) in the person infected with this parasite, which thus suppresses T cell proliferation and antibody production.[xxviii]
Lymphopenia (low lymphocytes) is a well-established consequence of the malaria parasite, but this is replaced with an increase in lymphocytes in a few days after drug therapy has started and then gradually normalizes over the next couple of weeks.[xxix]
9. The parasite drug levamisole is helpful for MS and malaria
10. Malaria Drug helps primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS)
September 2021. The study Hydroxychloroquine for Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis was published by researchers at the University of Calgary AB, Canada. Scientists at this university are leaders in publishing important studies about the microbiome and MS.
Normally at least 40% or 14 of the 35 PPMS participants should have experienced a decline in their ability to walk over the 18 months of the study, but at the end of this trial of HCQ, only 8 got worse.
They found that the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) reduced the activity of immune cells in the central nervous system and had neuroprotective effects in vitro.
Participants in the study took 200 mg HCQ twice a day for 18 months. This is a typical dose of HCQ used to treat Lupus and rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
Their conclusion: “…In people with PPMS, HCQ treatment was associated with reduced disability worsening. HCQ is a promising treatment candidate for PPMS and should be investigated further in randomized controlled clinical trials.”
The changing view of the MS disease process
It is beyond shocking and disturbing that all this research is available, yet the relevance of it is not known or understood. Over 100 years ago, researchers and practitioners knew this and yet all their knowledge and wisdom has been ignored and forgotten.
Those who suffer from MS and other chronic diseases are in a state of dysbiosis; their microbiome is out of balance. They have an abundance of disease-causing parasites and a deficit of health-promoting microbes. Yet it appears that a malaria / Babesia type protist parasite is common in many if not all MS patients and if this is true, we could be close to a cure for MS.
If worms, fungi and pathogenic bacteria are treated, but this protist is present and not treated, the immune system will continue to be compromised and the person will continue to be susceptible to ongoing parasitic infections.
Although there appears to be a changing view about the disease process of MS, which focuses on this new sub-type of MS called vascular MS, it begs the question, “Will researchers look for the cause of the vascular abnormalities in MS to find a cure, or will they search for new patentable medications to manage vascular disease in MS patients?” That is the multi-billion dollar question.
Thus far, the experts responsible for the 2017 McDonald criteria on how MS is diagnosed and treated, find no value in this research. They are focused on lesions and antibodies for the diagnosis of MS and treat MS with expensive immuno-suppressive disease modifying maintenance drugs that are to be prescribed indefinitely or as long as the MS patient will tolerate them. With billions of dollars at stake, why would the MS industry or the health care industry be interested treating the cause of MS and curing people?
There are real solutions to recover from parasites today!
To restore health, we must focus on treating the cause of inflammation, which are parasites. First, identify the enemy (parasites), then support the body and treat the parasites while following a holistic approach. When parasitic infections are treated effectively, we can overcome inflammation or disease.
If you’re frustrated with the fact that our standard of care STILL doesn’t offer a real solution for treating MS and other diseases, then click on the link below to watch Pam Bartha’s free masterclass training and discover REAL solutions that have allowed Pam and many others to live free from MS and other diseases.
CLICK Here to watch Pam’s masterclass training
Or take the Health Blocker Quiz to see if you could have parasite infections
References:
[i] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10553029/
[ii] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC384191/#:~:text=Sequestration%2C%20the%20adherence%20of%20infected,characteristic%20of%20Plasmodium%20falciparum%20infections.
[iii] https://www.thecardiologyadvisor.com/news/malaria-cardiovascular-complications-and-therapies-can-have-fatal-cardiac-effects/#:~:text=Pregnant%20women%2C%20older%20adults%2C%20children,cardiac%20tamponade%2C%20and%20heart%20failure.
[iv] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3382058/ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369931872_Sequential_analysis_of_erythrocyte_aggregation_in_P_falciparum_malaria_with_and_without_ASAQ_therapy_by_optical_signal_and_image_analysis
[v] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5433403/#:~:text=Erythrocyte%20aggregation,are%20known%20to%20influence%20haemorheology.&text=Thus%2C%20there%20is%20a%20possibility,haemorheological%20changes%20seen%20in%20MS
[vi] https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2021.620963/full
[vii] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3382058/
[viii] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5433403/
[ix] https://www.scirp.org/html/2-2080019_21173.htm
[x] https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2021.620963/full
[xi] https://www.scirp.org/html/2-2080019_21173.htm
[xii] https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2021.620963/full
[xiii] https://www.thecardiologyadvisor.com/news/malaria-cardiovascular-complications-and-therapies-can-have-fatal-cardiac-effects/#:~:text=Pregnant%20women%2C%20older%20adults%2C%20children,cardiac%20tamponade%2C%20and%20heart%20failure.
[xiv] https://ashpublications.org/blood/article/140/Supplement%201/11086/491714/Iron-Deficiency-Is-Commonly-Observed-in-Female
[xv] https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2024.1376838/full
[xvi] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3402663/
[xvii] https://karger.com/ene/article-abstract/73/3-4/233/125884/Association-between-Anemia-and-Multiple-Sclerosis?redirectedFrom=fulltext
[xviii] https://www.mymsteam.com/resources/how-anemia-can-worsen-multiple-sclerosis-fatigue#:~:text=This%20is%20fatigue%2C%20the%20single,RBC)%20%E2%80%94%20also%20called%20anemia.
[xix] https://www.scirp.org/html/2-2080019_21173.htm
[xx] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4603001/
[xxi] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3910413/#:~:text=The%20variation%20in%20RDW%20is,of%20the%20infected%20red%20cells.
[xxii] https://www.webmd.com/multiple-sclerosis/conditions-you-may-have
[xxiii] https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/langlo/PIIS2214-109X(23)00419-9.pdf
[xxiv] https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12936-019-3007-4
[xxv] https://www.escardio.org/The-ESC/Press-Office/Press-releases/malaria-infection-is-associated-with-increased-risk-of-heart-failure
[xxvi] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5394435/
[xxvii] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21599-0
[xxviii] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8536967/#:~:text=Malaria%20affects%20cellular%20as%20well,cell%20proliferation%20and%20antibody%20production.
[xxix] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC101581/#:~:text=Lymphopenia%20is%20a%20well%2Destablished,couple%20of%20weeks%20(4).
[xxx] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9418496/#bib21
[xxxi] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9418496/#bib21
Additional References:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18437030/
https://www.ibb.cnr.it/papers/JVMS_2016_b75354d1c999.pdf
https://www.scirp.org/pdf/ojmn20120300007_17037124.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10553029/#R1
https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000012610
Clinically diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at the age of 28, Pam chose an alternative approach to recovery. Now decades later and still symptom free, she coaches others on how to treat the root cause of chronic disease, using a holistic approach. She can teach you how, too.
Pam is the author of Become a Wellness Champion and founder of Live Disease Free. She is a wellness expert, coach and speaker.
The Live Disease Free Academy has helped hundreds of Wellness Champions in over 15 countries take charge of their health and experience profound improvements in their life.
