All Posts Tagged With: "Yale"

Study from Yang at Yale on Bb movement in tick gut

Linda’s comments:  Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease, is transmitted to humans by bite of Ixodes scapularis ticks. The mechanisms by which the bacterium is transmitted from vector to host are poorly understood.  Now we need to educate alternative docs….

Link: http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.1002079

Excerpt:

Using a yeast surface display approach, 
a tick gut protein named TRE31 was identified to interact with BBE31. 
Silencing tre31 also decreased the B. burgdorferi burden in the tick 
hemolymph. Delineating the specific spirochete and arthropod ligands 
required for B. burgdorferi movement in the tick may lead to new 
strategies to interrupt the life cycle of the Lyme disease agent.

Low White Blood Cell Count Distinguishes Lyme Arthritis

Excerpt:

November 13, 2009 (Washington, DC) — The odds that a child living in a Lyme-endemic area of the United States who presents with a joint effusion will be diagnosed as having Lyme arthritis is 29%. The odds are even higher (44%) if the affected joint is the knee. The leukocyte count is useful in distinguishing between septic and Lyme arthritis, researchers announced here.

“There was an increase in the number of cases in the United States by 101% over the past 15 years, possibly due to increased recognition of Lyme disease,” said Aristides I. Cruz Jr., MD, resident in the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. During his presentation, he noted that 93% of all Lyme disease cases arise from 10 states, most in the Northeast United States.

Birds Play an Important Role in the Spread of Lyme Disease -Yale Study Finds

*********They had to spend thousands perhaps, even more to find that Birds are playing an important role in the spread of Lyme Disease??  What???   Are you telling me that birds stop at each border and request the right to fly over your state??  What a big waste of money….why doesn’t Yale and the Infectious Disease docs and other specialists at Yale, who say there is NO chronic Lyme, spend money finding a cure for Lyme disease instead of finding out what we patient’s already know.  Give me a break!!

*********It is time that patient’s start standing up and pushing back….sitting back and doing nothing is getting us no where.

*********We need to stop “fearing” city hall, when we can be city hall in these Lyme wars.

*********Just remember folks, Lyme isn’t just carried by ticks….look to birds, rodents, mice, we need to understand that it is up to us Lymie’s to take a stand.

Regards,

Linda

Article Excerpt:

New Haven, Conn. – The range of Lyme disease is spreading in North America and it appears that birds play a significant role by transporting the Lyme disease bacterium over long distances, a new study by the Yale School of Public Health has found. The study appears online in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

Researchers analyzed published records and concluded that at least 70 species of North American birds are susceptible to infection by black-legged ticks (Ixodes scapularis), the principal vector of the Lyme disease bacterium (Borrelia burgdorferi). The evidence also suggests that these bird species are dispersing infected ticks into areas that had previously been free of the disease, such as Canada.

Lyme disease bacterium is usually associated with small mammals such as mice and squirrels. Immature ticks (in the larval and nymphal stages) become infected with the bacterium when they feed on these mammals. During subsequent blood meals, an infected tick transmits the infection to other hosts, including humans. White-tailed deer-while playing an important role in maintaining and spreading tick populations-are a biological dead end for the bacterium because its blood is immune to infection.

Birds, however, are not immune and numerous species get infected and are capable of transmitting the pathogen onto ticks, the researchers found. What remains to be seen is whether the B. burgdorferi strains that can infect birds can also cause disease in humans. If so, the role of birds in the epidemiology of Lyme disease could be profound.
 

To read the whole article:

http://www.healthnewsdigest.com/cgi-bin/artman/search.cgi

Low White Blood Cell Count Distinguishes Lyme Arthritis From Septic Arthritis

November 13, 2009 (Washington, DC) – The odds that a child living in a Lyme-endemic area of the United States who presents with a joint effusion will be diagnosed as having Lyme arthritis is 29%. The odds are even higher (44%) if the affected joint is the knee. The leukocyte count is useful in distinguishing between septic and Lyme arthritis, researchers announced here.

“There was an increase in the number of cases in the United States by 101% over the past 15 years, possibly due to increased recognition of Lyme disease,” said Aristides I. Cruz Jr., MD, resident in the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. During his presentation, he noted that 93% of all Lyme disease cases arise from 10 states, most in the Northeast United States. Continued

On the Trail of a Vaccine for Lyme Disease

On the Trail of a Vaccine for Lyme Disease: Yale Researchers Target Tick Saliva
Published: November 18, 2009

New Haven, Conn. — A protein found in the saliva of ticks helps protect mice from developing Lyme disease, Yale researchers have discovered. The findings, published in the November 19 issue of Cell Host & Microbe, may spur development of a new vaccine against infection from Lyme disease, which is spread through tick bites. Continued

Low White Blood Cell Count Distinguishes Lyme Arthritis From Septic Arthritis

Low White Blood Cell Count Distinguishes Lyme Arthritis From Septic Arthritis
Crina Frincu-Mallos, PhD

November 13, 2009 (Washington, DC) — The odds that a child living in a Lyme-endemic area of the United States who presents with a joint effusion will be diagnosed as having Lyme arthritis is 29%. The odds are even higher (44%) if the affected joint is the knee. The leukocyte count is useful in distinguishing between septic and Lyme arthritis, researchers announced here. Continued