I appreciate this discussion and your posts and I think the role of chronic infection in chronic illness is severely underestimated. Because of genetic variation and molecular mimicry, certain pathogens will cause chronic problems in a percentage of the population. In addition, as the other poster pointed out, female problems may be neurotransmitter/hormone mediated. Estrogen dominance for instance, is more common these days because childbirth is delayed and because of all the xenobiotics (fake estrogens) in the environment as well as hormones from commercial meat..mast cells are more likely to degranulate in the presence of estrogen...it doesn't take a lot of hard thinking to understand all this and why women are more prone to autoimmune illness--a lot more to say, but not necessary here.
Many doctors are inadequate and even bad today, but then again, the system has pushed them so that they can spend 7-10 minutes with a patient, and that's not good either.
A problem with some of the drugs that may become blockbusters, imo, is that they dampen immune responses or inflammatory responses (tysabri, vioxx etc) without ever looking at the idea of chronic infection as the original cause. Maybe the body is trying to "talk" and maybe the inflammation is serving a purpose, albeit an unpleasant symptom. |
