Please tell me if there’s anything wrong with my reasoning :

Almost everywhere in Europe and the US, a big proportion of ticks are infected. Something like 40 % in my area. According to recent articles, they are everywhere in the countryside, even in gardens of residential homes. So most people must have been bitten at least once in their life by an infected tick, usually without their knowledge and without any antibiotic treatment. I don’t know if any study confirms this, and I’d be very curious to know, but it seems like common sense to me.

Very few people develop chronic Lyme, so the only explanation is that most people’s immune system is preventing that, either because they completely eradicated the bacteria in the acute phase, which seems unlikely, or because the immune system keeps in check whatever hidden bacteria remained.

If most of the population has been exposed to Lyme, if one were to test everyone for Lyme antibodies, wouldn’t we find antibodies in most of them? As far as I understand, the presence of IgG antibodies means that at some point in their lives, they had to deal with an infection from this bacteria.

Is it that in people with chronic Lyme, antibodies “live on” while the infection is ongoing, while in people who controlled the infection, the number of antibodies decreases gradually?

Also, I'd be interested to know if you agree with my assumption that most people have been exposed to Lyme, and if you've ever heard of any evidence of that.

Thank you

i think its likely the case that lyme ( and other chronic infections ) are much more common that is currently believed to be the case

the situation is susceptible to a kind of circular reasoning

if one designs a test for what is believed to be a rare disease - and then finds some level of antibodies to the organism in a large proportion of the population including those people that appear to be fully healthy - then one typically just raises the threshold for a positive result in the test till it reflects more what one is expecting to see. ie aligns as best you can make it with the "Healthy" vs "Not healthy" categories you have predetermined

this is of course also dependent on the further assumption that the healthy persons are uninfected and the unhealthy persons are infected - which is not a reliable assumption either - since we do not have the technology to differentiate infected from uninfected today.

on the other hand - ticks and the organisms they carry have been on the planet for millennium
and up until the last 100 years of so humans around the world had a lifestyle that would expose them to ticks and the organism they carry on a daily basis.
hunting and gathering, including foraging in tick habitats, butchering and skinning animals of all types and sizes, and cohabiting with animals that carried both ticks and the infections they carry - along with v poor sanitary conditions.

we wouldn't all be here today if we became non-functional every time we were infected by one of these organisms.
much like these diseases in other animals - they mainly affect the week and the compromised in the herd and the rest have robust immune responses that keep them well by either eradicating the infections or keeping them well controlled - just as our immune systems do for many of the illnesses we acquired during childhood.
thus via survival of the fittest the population going forward is able to fight off the infections.

problems start to arise when modern life intersects the natural world
the many headwinds impinging on human biology are weakening the population - especially at an immune system level

-a diet a very long way from our original template - excessive in calories but lacking nutrients and laced with immune disrupting chemicals,

-reductions in sleep duration and quality - eg 75% of all British adults get less than 8hrs sleep per night - sleep reduction reduces immune competence

-increases in social isolation - around 1/4 of Americans say they have no one to confide in - and loneliness is known to cause greater increases in all cause mortality than smoking

to name just a few of the factors

so people are getting sick at an ever increasing rate

but the antibody based tests struggle to tell those infected from those not infected ( or at least not unwell)
and we may well be seeing an increasing level of sickness - while infection rates are actually relatively steady

many people do indeed receive and fight off these infections
lyme disease is known to cause a "summer flu" like illness that self resolves in some people

for those that do succumb to illness - there is often an obvious immune suppressing event in the story of many of the people here - in my own case - i was working 12+hrs days in a very stressful environment and getting v little sleep.
for others it was a traumatic event, relationship stress or major surgery

there are also some scientific evidence for the above hypothesis

there are a couple of serology based German studies in healthy older adults that found around 50% tested positive for antibodies to borrelia - showing that this is not a rare organism or infection - also perhaps indicating that the longer a person has been around on the planet - the greater their chance of exposure

there is also the Red Labs - Phage based test for borrelia - that test looks for dna/rna sequences of bacteriophages specific to borrelia burgdorferi ( viruses that parasitize bacteria) - these virus particles and therefore the viral genetic material are far more numerous than the DNA of Borrelia itself - allowing a much more sensitive test than conventional blood tests.
with this method they also found around 50% of healthy volunteers were positive for borrelia by this method. this again indicates that the infection is much more common than previously thought - and that its present in a large proportion of healthy persons not just sick ones.

unfortunately this paradigm is at odds with most of medical science - which still believes - these infections are rare and, once acquired, infection equals illness -

the prevalence of lyme in ticks varies widely - its true in some locations at specific points in time its can be as high as 40% - but very often its much much lower - values of 10% or under are more typical - and this varies from habitat to habitat and country to country
some animal reservoirs are much better than others at promoting it - eg small rodents mainly ( whereas larger mammal populations often actually reduce borrelia incidence in ticks ) so where these are present in highest numbers - Lyme is typically more prevalent. broken wooded areas - or fringes of woodland are typically the highest risk
in Europe ground dwelling birds like blackbirds, thrushes etc are important hosts - and in some countries - eg Finland - the incidence of Lyme disease is actually highly associated with the numbers of these bird species migrating each year

so while some areas could have tick infection rates as high as 40 or 50% its not typical as a national average
and the actual rate will vary widely from location to location and season to season
and its still possible to contract it anywhere in the world - even in a local park or your own back garden - even if you are in a supposedly low risk region.

the other factor that must be considered in terms of exposure at a population level is potential human to human transmission - for example, sexually.
we don't have much evidence on this one way or the other - and given the problems with test sensitivity discussed above - we do not really have the tools to bottom this out fully yet - but what evidence we do have is pointing towards this being more likely than not.
here again - the hosts immune competence is likely to be the main factor in determining who gets sick - rather than the mere fact of exposure.

I don't know if I'd agree that most people have been exposed to Lyme. "Most" in this case meaning > %50, but I do agree that many more have been exposed than the average person probably thinks.

I'm interested if those who are bitten, infected and receive no treatment, but don't become chronically ill, clear the infection totally in the acute phase or their immune systems keep the microbes in check long term. My gut makes me think that the infections simmer at a low level controlled by the immune system until a significant stressor releases them and all hell breaks loose. Anecdotally, I've seen many online come to these Lyme forums stating their chronic illness started with COVID and they were diagnosed with Lyme after a blood test and suspicious symptoms. If people are walking around with these microbes held in check by their immune systems I believe we have an unconscionable amount of people who are ticking time bombs now that COVID is in play (also a shout out to the Western culture that breeds unhealthy bodies. Can't help but wonder if lifestyle + latent simmering chronic infections + COVID is a slow moving ongoing disaster happening before our eyes)

Personally, I'm more suspicious now that, before my bite, a lifetime of the standard american diet, and a potential weakening on my immune system by roughly half a dozen flu infections primed me for Lyme and Co to wipe me out. When I think back on my teenage years and early to mid 20s I think I had more fatigue and got sick easier than many of my peers. In addition, in my mid 20s, I joined the National Guard. This obviously creates stress with initial military training (e.g. basic training, technical training) and even after that military culture isn't super conducive to healthy habits (e.g. long hours, early mornings, alcohol, pushing oneself constantly whether that be through physical training or work). It was around this time I got bit by the tick that caused my illness. Even then I feel my immune system held off the infection pretty well for a couple months. My symptoms were just mild, but they spilled over into more severe symptoms eventually and I've been destroyed since then.

Dr. Bill Rawl's book "Unlocking Lyme" discusses this pot boiling over analogy. The first time I read this a light bulb went off in my head. I realized this is probably what happened to me. Here's a link that discusses this analogy. I think it's pretty brilliant myself.

https://rawlsmd.com/health-articles/chronic-immune-dysfunction-lyme-disease

Post Edited (Lymie24) : 8/15/2024 8:23:07 AM (GMT-8)

Quin said...
There's another theory, and it has to do with genetics.

In about 5% of the population, there is a chromosomal rearrangement suspected to reduce expression of the NCF1 gene, a key component of the NADPH oxidase complex, which the immune system uses to kill bacteria.

Why would such a seemingly bad genetic mutation become so prevalent?

It turns out that this lowers the rate of inflammation and lowers the risk of high blood pressure and heart disease.

For most of our history we were exposed to a lot of ticks, but in the last few centuries people started living in cities where they weren't exposed to so many ticks. Suddenly heart disease became the number one killer. People with less risk of heart disease lived longer, and the frequency of NCF1 mutations exploded.

So now those people aren't getting heart disease, but they're getting Lyme.

i am sure there is some individual genetic variability element that plays a part of the complex interplay of factors involved in susceptibility to lyme and other chronic infections

but the idea that we are evolving rapidly to become more resistant to heart disease - and as a result more susceptible to lyme - seems to have some flaws

for instance - the way natural selection works is that - in order for selection of the new gene variant to happen there needs to be an advantage of having the mutation that increases the chances of the host organism passing on its genetic material.

heart disease doesn't tend to kill people until after they have passed on their generic material or had the chance to do so - rather than before - so being more resistant to heart disease and living to 75 instead of 55 does not really confer a selective advantage from an evolutionary perspective.

this form of natural selection also typically takes several thousands of years to spread to the majority of a population - rather than the few decades over which we see the dramatic increase of incidence of both heart disease and Lyme disease increasing today
for example - urbanisation is a relatively recent phenomenon - up until around 1920 most Americans lived in rural areas - not cities

in reality this short timescale in itself points to environmental changes rather than genetic ones as the most likely cause

Thanks everyone for your replies.

Garzie said...
the hosts immune competence is likely to be the main factor in determining who gets sick - rather than the mere fact of exposure.

If this is the most common theory, why don’t treatments focus more aggressively on immune modulating herbs like adaptogens ? If a healthy immune system can control the infection early, surely it should be able to control it late, even if it takes a while.

I don’t know about the other herbal protocols, but Buhner’s core protocol does include 3 of them : cordyceps, eleuthero, and ashwaganda. Also licorice but I think he says it can’t be used long-term. Cat’s Claw is supposed to help with immune support but it is not classified as an adaptogen. From what I understood, to be called adaptogens, herbs need to have a normalizing effect on different systems of the body, an ability to bring back homeostasis. Which is what we want if a balanced immune system can deal with the infection without help. Do many chronic Lyme patients really take at least 3-4 adaptogens combined in the long term?

Even among the people who use Buhner’s herbs, I’m not sure how many actually do the full protocol for example. In my case, it did a big part of the protocol for 3 months, but not everything and I especially neglected the adaptogens.

That's interesting. It makes me want to try again to read the more technical parts of Buhner’s book. I agree that the concept of adaptogen is rather vague. In his book "Adaptogens", David Winston says that an immunomodulatory effect is a required criterion for a herb to be called adaptogen. So in theory all adaptogens have that effect. But as you said, there are many ways to modulate the immune system and they may not act all in the same way and on the same parts of the immune system. Maybe that’s why in traditional herbal medicine like in China or India they are used in combination, often with 10 herbs or more. The impact on the immune system is maybe more "comprehensive" in that way, or at least the likelyhood that it will impact what we want is higher.

chip753 said...
If this is the most common theory, why don’t treatments focus more aggressively on immune modulating herbs like adaptogens ? If a healthy immune system can control the infection early, surely it should be able to control it late, even if it takes a while.

Because a healthy immune system controlling the infection early doesn't mean getting rid of it. It just sequesters it in cysts and granulomas so it doesn't spread. You may be okay for a few years, but eventually you will get sick with something else and then your immune system won't be able to control the Lyme disease and it will get worse.

It might be possible for your immune system to kill the bacteria with a lot of superoxide or nitric oxide production. You don't want to do this because those reactive oxygen species are very damaging to healthy tissue. This is presumably the reason why there are so many NCF1 knockdown mutations in the general population. Some of the treatments that I tried did inadvertently stimulate my immune system to produce a lot of superoxide. This caused a horrible burning smell, I got very sick, and this excessive stimulation of the immune system also caused autoimmune disease. You really don't want to do this.