An interview with Prof. Garth Nicolson

By on Nov 8, 2010 in F.I.G.H.T., Infections, Interesting Stories

 Full article: http://www.prohealth.com/library/showarticle.cfm?libid=15675

Excerpt:

Professor Garth Nicolson, PhD, director of the Institute for Molecular Medicine in Huntington Beach, CA, (www.immed.org) was a featured speaker at the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society Annual Conference in Jersey City, NJ on Oct. 14-17, 2010.

This interview highlights key points in Dr. Nicolson’s presentation to the ILADS group – “Reversing Mitochondrial Damage and Increasing Cellular Energy in Chronic Lyme and Lyme-Associated Infections.”

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Q: Professor Nicolson, what causes Lyme disease?
 
Prof Nicolson: Lyme Disease (LD) is caused by the bite of an infected tick and transmission of multiple infections from the tick to its host.

• Among these infections, the most well known is Borrelia burgdorferi, a spirochete bacteria that borrows into cells and can be found inside cells and tissues, and sometimes it can be found outside of cells in lymph and blood.

• In addition, other commonly found bacterial co-infections, such as Mycoplasma fermentans and sometimes Mycoplasma pneumoniae, are found in LD. These small bacteria without a rigid cell wall also hide inside cells and tissues and are rarely found in body fluids.

• Another important type of intracellular bacteria found as a co-infection in LD are various species of Bartonella.

• Also, bacteria similar to Mycoplasma – Ehrlichia species -can be found in many LD patients as well as another bacteria, Anaplasma species.

• In addition to bacteria, Lyme ticks can also transmit Babesia species, a small protozoan. These infections are difficult to find and diagnose using current laboratory methods.

Thus LD is not a simple infection, and the possible presence of several pathogenic intracellular microorganisms makes this disease especially difficult to diagnose and very difficult to treat.  

A further complication is the fact that Lyme-like diseases can involve one or more tick-borne infections without the presence of Borrelia burgdorferi. This makes for a much more complicated picture than most patients and even physicians expect.