Shocking that this discovery has now been made by the mainstream scientific establishment. The next thing you know, we will be closing in on candy and pop as unhealthy nutrients. The chronically ill who are routinely ushered off to psychiatrist for antidepressants or to “fibromyalgia clinic” to learn how to accept their condition might actually at some point in the hopefully near future be treated differently. Whether it is tickborne disease, chronic or latent viral reactivation syndromes, or some other mysterious inflammatory response to a common commensal, a larger and larger number of “mystery illnesses” are now being identified as the unfortunate confluence of infection, genes, stress, and an unfortunate immune response that smolders and targets native tissues. For decades rheumatic fever was not a difficult illness in principle to understand. Molecular mimicry between certain streptococcal proteins or antigens and the connective tissue of joints, heart valves, and other native cells resulted in an immunologic “provocation” that can induce long-lasting damage long after the streptococcal infection has been treated with standard courses of antibiotics. Now it is being discovered that a whole host of different infectious agents–viruses, bacteria, parasites, etc.–can induce similar chronic inflammatory illness and damage. The problem is that very often these symptoms may manifest themselves as ill-defined “fatigue”, mood swings or psychiatric illness, pain, autonomic dysfunction (look up “POTS”), etc. Even post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD has now been linked with actual inflammatory changes in the brain that could be a major part of the underlying cause.
It is no longer acceptable to simply usher people through the clinic and treat them with some type of feel-good medication. The upstream underpinnings of these illnesses are now detectable and treatable.