Cytomegalovirus (CMV) May Cause High Blood Pressure.

Cytomegalovirus

This is a crucial article in setting the stage for the need of treating the infections that everyone else is ignoring!!! This is a review of the CMV research from Harvard that I feel is short and to the point; however, I have attached the link to the full research report so that you can better appreciate the far reaching significance and new understanding of the role Infections in chronic degenerative disease.

Lyme, etc is not an adequate description; TOTAL BODY BURDEN OF PATHOGENS should become today’s focus. This report reveals that there is or has been CMV in 60-99% of everyone documented by this Harvard research so why fight over whether the pathogens we encounter are Lyme or Candida or some exotic Fungus. Let’s deal with pathogen burden and lower it!
For most chronically ill patients we need to incorporate something like ACS Silver, or Oxidative therapies like UVB/Ozone, or high dose Vitamin C to help patients deal more effectively with the infection component of their health problem, which can have over 100 different names. I am thinking about all patients with chronic autoimmune related conditions, which are over 27 million people in the United States alone.

These patients need a total approach to recover. I think my F.I.G.H.T. program will dramatically increase success in dealing with these complex conditions, where standard medicine is doing little and often harming patients with their excessively narrow single etiology approaches.

There are other infections whose incidence is close to that, such as those from our mouth that are now tied to many chronic health conditions. These chronic infections are the next frontier that has been largely ignored. If standard antibiotics do not eradicate these infections, no one really wants to spend the time and money to diagnose them.

Patients are aware of the need to detox and they understand that everyone has these chemicals (like PCB’s, Dioxins, Flame Retardant PBDE, etc.), but infection is not on their mind unless they have heard of Lyme. Lyme has become a dangerous diagnosis to make, and even the Mayo Clinic says no test is completely accurate.  The doctor who feels it could be Lyme should go ahead and treat based on clinical history and condition, and not fail to treat because of a negative Lyme test. Yet, we know that diagnosing Lyme makes the insurance companies worried about the potential costs, and they lean on Medical Boards to discipline anyone treating Lyme.

Since most infections can be treated effectively with alternative therapies, from high dose IV C to ACS Silver and aggressive nutritional support programs, then it seems wiser to not focus on the presence or absence of a particular infection, when experts agree we all have significant infections on board at all times. So why don’t we just admit that there is an epidemic of chronic, generally antibiotic-resistant, undiagnosed infections, and help the body lower the burden of all these pathogens which even the Institute Of Medicine agrees are present in chronic disease.

See my POWERPOINT on www.gordonresearch.com, for my upcoming lecture to be presented at the Lyme In Autism Conference, June 25-28, in Scottsdale, AZ. I feel that rather than wasting a lot of time and money attempting to prove Lyme is present or not, when it may not even be the main culprit, and if it is present, generally there are other Lyme associated infections present too. Let’s help the patient’s body handle these infections by finding the optimal diet, lowering the toxins and heavy metals, optimizing nutritional status, and considering genetic and epigenetic issues such as providing needed methylation acetylation and sulfation support.

I believe that we should advise our patients that determining which virus, fungus or bacteria is the main culprit is less important than lowering their total body burden of ALL pathogens, as a part of a comprehensive program I call F.I.G.H.T. Any such treatment-based program will be more cost effective for patients who need results now, than spending thousands of dollars and wasting time trying to identify Lyme or some other pathogens.

In this research on CMV, the condition happens to be hypertension, but it could just as well be researched in the context of almost any chronic disease including chronic neurological conditions from Autism to Parkinson’s. The name of the condition is less important than having a concept that can improve the health of most patients seeking your care.

This is WHY I developed my F.I.G.H.T. program.  Learning about this research on how infections from our mouth are proven to grow in virtually every aneurism, will help you and your patients avoid being excessively focused on too narrow a recovery plan. Without using some therapy to lower total body burden of Pathogens, I am convinced we are providing suboptimal care to our autoimmune patients.  This research now shows we can better tie infection into hypertension and cardiovascular disease.

Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.com

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Cytomegalovirus Infection Causes an Increase of Arterial Blood Pressure

http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.1000427

Cytomegalovirus may cause high blood pressure

http://www.news-medical.net/news/2009/05/15/Cytomegalovirus-may-cause-high-blood-pressure.aspx

15. May 2009 03:26 A new study suggests for the first time that cytomegalovirus (CMV), a common viral infection affecting between 60 and 99 percent of adults worldwide, is a cause of high blood pressure, a leading risk factor for heart disease, stroke and kidney disease.
Led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and published in the May 15, 2009 issue of PLoS Pathogens, the findings further demonstrate that, when coupled with other risk factors for heart disease, the virus can lead to the development of atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries.
“CMV infects humans all over the world,” explains co-senior author Clyde Crumpacker, MD, an investigator in the Division of Infectious Diseases at BIDMC and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “This new discovery may eventually provide doctors with a whole new approach to treating hypertension, with anti-viral therapies or vaccines becoming part of the prescription.”
A member of the herpes virus family, CMV affects all age groups and is the source of congenital infection, mononucleosis, and severe infection in transplant patients. By the age of 40, most adults will have contracted the virus, though many will never exhibit symptoms. Once it has entered the body, CMV is usually there to stay, remaining latent until the immune system is compromised, when it then reemerges.
Previous epidemiological studies had determined that the CMV virus was linked to restenosis in cardiac transplant patients, a situation in which the heart’s arteries “reblock.” The virus had also been linked to the development of atherosclerosis, the hardening of the heart’s arteries. But, in both cases, the mechanism behind these developments remained a mystery. This new study brought together a team of researchers from a variety of disciplines – infectious diseases, cardiology, allergy and pathology – to look more closely at the issue.
“By combining the insights of investigators from different medical disciplines, we were able to measure effects of a viral infection that may have been previously overlooked,” explains Crumpacker.
In the first portion of the study, the scientists examined four groups of laboratory mice. Two groups of animals were fed a standard diet and two groups were fed a high cholesterol diet. After a period of four weeks, one standard diet mouse group and one high-cholesterol diet mouse group were infected with the CMV virus.
Six weeks later, the animals’ blood pressures were measured by the cardiology team using a small catheter inserted in the mouse carotid artery. Among the mice fed a standard diet, the CMV-infected mice had increased blood pressure compared with the uninfected group. But even more dramatically, 30 percent of the CMV-infected mice that were fed a high-cholesterol diet not only exhibited increased blood pressure, but also showed signs of having developed atherosclerosis.
“This strongly suggests that the CMV infection and the high-cholesterol diet might be working together to cause atherosclerosis,” says Crumpacker. In order to find out how and why this was occurring, the investigators went on to conduct a series of cell culture experiments.
Their first analysis demonstrated that CMV stimulated production of three , and MCP1 – in the infected mice,µdifferent inflammatory cytokines – IL6, TNF an indication that the virus was causing inflammation to vascular cells and other tissues.
A second analysis found that infection of a mouse kidney cell line with murine CMV led to an increase in expression of the renin enzyme, which has been known to activate the renin-angiotensin system and lead to high blood pressure. Clinical isolates of human CMV in cultured blood vessel cells also produced increased renin expression.
“Viruses have the ability to turn on human genes and, in this case, the CMV virus is enhancing expression of renin, an enzyme directly involved in causing high blood pressure,” says Crumpacker. When the scientists inactivated the virus through the use of ultraviolet light, renin expression did not increase, suggesting that actively replicating virus was causing the increase in renin.
In their final experiments, the researchers demonstrated that the protein angiotensin 11 was also increased in response to infection with CMV. “Increased expression of both renin and angiotensin 11 are important factors in hypertension in humans,” says Crumpacker. “What our study seems to indicate is that a persistent viral infection in the vessels’ endothelial cells is leading to increased expression of inflammatory cytokines, renin and angiotensin 11, which are leading to increased blood pressure.”
According to recent figures from the American Heart Association, one in three U.S. adults has high blood pressure, and because there are no known symptoms, nearly one-third of these individuals are unaware of their condition. Often dubbed “the silent killer,” uncontrolled high blood pressure can lead to stroke, heart attack, heart failure or kidney failure, notes Crumpacker.
“We found that CMV infection alone led to an increase in high blood pressure, and when combined with a high-cholesterol diet, the infection actually induced atherosclerosis in a mouse aorta,” says Crumpacker. “This suggests that further research needs to be directed at viral causes of vascular injury. Some cases of hypertension might be treated or prevented by antiviral therapy or a vaccine against CMV.”
http://bidmc.harvard.edu