Spiritual Forums

Spiritual Forums (https://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/index.php)
-   Health (https://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=71)
-   -   Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis (MAP) (https://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=143731)

Aldous 30-04-2022 11:00 PM

Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis (MAP)
 
I've been reading about various Mycobacterium species for almost ten years. I thought this was interesting. MAP causes gastroenteritis in cattle and other aniimals. Also, its been theorized that this may be the cause of Crohn's disease in humans. There's a lot of evidence for it. According to this article, most people are constantly exposed to it through our food and water supply.

Mycobacterium paratuberculosis as a cause of Crohn's disease
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4894645/

Aldous 02-05-2022 02:08 PM

The first Mycobacterium species I started reading about was the result of me watching a ghost hunter's episode on TV. They were at the Waverly Hills TB sanatorium in Louisville Kentucky. After seeing Waverly Hills on TV, I got on the internet to see if there was anything about Waverly Hills and not only found some websites about it, but discovered that there used to be a lot of TB sanatoriums. I heard of TB sanatoriums, but didn't realize there were so many of them. Drugs that can cure it started being used in the 1940's which led to its decline in most parts of the world and all the TB sanatoriums in the US were either converted to something else or abandoned. When I started to read about TB (TB = tubercle bacillus), the authors would often emphasize the incredible magnitude of the problem and I would feel anxiety for a while, but over time I would stop feeling this anxiety. Also, I noticed anytime it was in the news, the reporters or journalists would always be very alarmist about it, but there would be essentially no education about it at least where I live.

One species of bacteria, Mycobacterium tuberculosis causes 99% of tuberculosis in humans. There is also Mycobacterium bovis or bovine TB which is often found in cattle and other animals. People can get it by drinking unpasteurized milk from cows that are infected with it. Mycobacterium tuberculosis is often refered to as human TB in the old medical literature. Human TB doesn't cause extensive disease in cattle, but bovine TB has been a big problem in cattle historically and is a problem worldwide. About 1/4 to 1/3 (varies with source) of the human race is infected with TB. 10 - 15 million people in the US (4% of the population) have latent tuberculosis. 90% of people with latent TB don't develop any disease from it. Sometimes it dies and leaves a scar in the lungs which can be seen on a chest x-ray and you wouldn't know it was there unless the doctors found it and told you it was there. Latent TB isn't contagious, but the active form is. You can have latent TB for years or decades and it can become active at any time which is usually the result of your immune system not being able to keep it in check.

I thought of two questions a long time ago:
1. Why didn't anyone tell me?
2. Why don't people talk about it?

When I tried to talk to other people about it, I discovered the answer to those questions. A lot of people believe its such a big scandal that everyone needs to remain silent about it. But this silence often leads to neglect which just increases the problem.

When talking about this with other people I discovered some people with a family history of active TB and also someone who I worked with for 20 years told me he tested positive for TB after I worked with him for 20 years. He said his father had been in a sanatorium. The last person who told me he tested positive for TB was a real estate agent that was showing people a house they were trying to sell. I had always assumed apparently along with most people that TB infection is very rare, but apparently its absence is an illusion. Finding people infected with TB confirms what I read about a lot of people being infected with it.

Some other things I found from reading about it is that the active form tends to run in families and before the bacteria was discovered that causes it, it was believed to be inherited by some people. Genetics is a big factor in determining your resistance to TB. Europe had a lot of TB starting from about the 1400's and reached a peak in the 1700's. The result of this is that Europeans tend to have a very high resistance to TB because of natural selection. TB is a big problem in a lot of poorer countries and one factor might be that TB was relatively rare outside of Europe prior to the 1800's. IF you look at the TB reports from the CDC, white people are always at the bottom of the list anytime I looked at the reports.

I also found some articles and books published 70-100 years ago that claim that by a certain age everyone becomes infected with TB and you could go into any big city, collect dust in public and find TB in it. TB in dust is one possible source of infection. One possible discrepancy I see is that if everyone became infected with TB 70-100 years ago, why is only 1/4 to 1/3 of the human race infected now? Other Mycobacterium species besides human TB can make you test positive to the TB skin test, such as Mycobacterium marinum which is a free living species, but doesn't spread beyond the skin in warm blooded animals because it can't grow at your body temperature, and Mycobacterium bovis and even getting the BCG vaccine will make you test positive.

I believe everyone should be educated about the problem. The strength of your immune system has a lot to do with the development of TB disease and you have some control over your health and the strength of your immune system. Also, the health of your lungs is a factor. I read in some old medical journals that measles, flu and diphtheria and some other diseases can cause latent TB to turn active. Measles, flu and diphtheria vaccines are highly effective, but the TB vaccine (BCG vaccine) isn't too effective. The BCG vaccine isn't used in the USA, either. If you are infected with both HIV and TB you have a greater chance of developing active TB and the HIV will turn into AIDS faster compared to being only infected with HIV.

Aldous 02-05-2022 02:21 PM

You can see a phylogenetic tree of various pathogenic Mycobacteria species including TB and leprosy bacteria, in this article.

https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/a...l.pntd.0002544

https://od.lk/s/OV8xOTU4ODcyMDdf/MycoTree.png

Miss Hepburn 02-05-2022 02:47 PM

I'm so familiar with TB because Colorado, USA was a mecca for patients in the 1800s esp.
''The “cure” for tuberculosis, before antibiotics, was believed to be dry air and sunshine''.

Aldous 02-05-2022 06:54 PM

Yep. The first book I got on TB was
Living in the Shadow of Death
Tuberculosis and the Social Experience of Illness in American History
by Sheila M. Rothman

I remember a long time ago seeing an old black and white movie with one scene where a man with TB was talking to his doctor who told him to go out west. I used to think this was a long time ago and this type of thing doesn't happen now. They have drugs for curing it now. After I got Rothman's book I was surprised to find out that a lot of people with active TB in the east went out west in order to try to cure the TB. This was before the drugs were available. So climate has an effect on the disease. If you look at a lot of old sanatorium pictures, you can see the patients in beds on porches and pavilions at the sanatoriums out in the fresh air and sunlight. Its sort of like another back to nature health thing.

Fresh air and sunlight
https://od.lk/s/OV8xNzAxNzgxODNf/Fre...20sunlight.pdf
note the house with the consumption porch in front

The second book I got was
Timebomb The Global Epidemic of Multi--Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis
by Lee B. Reichman, et al.

I got some more books and looked through a lot of medical journals both old and new.

I got a hard copy of the 1910 edition of this book
https://archive.org/details/preventi...p?view=theater

FallingLeaves 02-05-2022 08:45 PM

i saw the waverly hills episode... although I think they *might* have gone twice.

i know someone who was a nurse working in a TB clinic. They tested for it and I think treated for it as well... definitely still an infectious disease as the nurses had to take precautions (I think it may even be run by the CDC)... but only a small portion of the population gets it now and I think it is usually cured in those who do...

Aldous 02-05-2022 09:48 PM

Notice the alarmism and blame game with this. This type of thing is apparently why TB has the great stigma that it has and why there tends to be a lot of silence with it.
Tuberculosis at Hooters
http://www.undercoverwaitress.com/20...#ixzz1xUNUFEKW

The orignial link is gone, but I found it using archive.org
https://web.archive.org/web/20120702...erculosis.html


I don't think the identities of those with active or latent TB should be made public. I do think people should know about it in general, ie. the large proportion of the population infected with it and the fact that a strong immune system and healthy lungs can help fight and a prevent it. Also, you need less drugs to get rid of latent TB than you do with active TB.

----------------------------------
Also, one thing about measles is if you get it, it tends to erase 40-70% of your immune system memory and your immune system is weakened for a couple years because of the measles. Vaccines are available for measles. There was an increase in TB rates I think this was in the 1980's to 1990's because of HIV.

Aldous 03-05-2022 03:02 PM

Some interesting articles
The first article emphasizes that TB isn't very contagious

The Truth About TB
https://tinyurl.com/ysjffuvz

How Tuberculosis Shaped Victorian Fashion
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...ion-180959029/

The Great New England Vampire Panic
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histo...anic-36482878/

The new,deadly TB strain may be more widespread
https://indianexpress.com/article/ne...re-widespread/


Reichman discusses drug resistant TB
https://www.tbonline.info/posts/prin...and-forgotten/

Aldous 09-10-2022 12:39 PM

I thought this was an interesting article from 1909 about the inadequacy of the educational method for reducing/eliminating the spread of TB. According to the article, it doesn't work with the poor.
https://od.lk/s/OV8xOTk1OTc2MDRf/Mar...47-April-r.pdf


Why are TB rates so high in poorer countries, but low in North America and western Europe?

'Designed for death': the Mumbai housing blocks breeding TB
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2...rculosis-death

How London became the tuberculosis capital of Europe
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2...ital-of-europe


TB rates dropped in the west from the late 1800's to the present according to this graph. Note that most of the drop happened before there were effective drugs for curing TB. I can't remember if this graph is from the US or Europe, but they follow a similar pattern.

Aldous 09-10-2022 12:57 PM

TB Incidence in the United States, 1953-2020
https://www.cdc.gov/tb/statistics/tbcases.htm

Explanations for 20th Century Tuberculosis Decline: How the Public Gets It Wrong
https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperi...?paperid=70106


All times are GMT. The time now is 01:44 AM.

Powered by vBulletin
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
(c) Spiritual Forums