*Videos* - Interview w/ Dr. Bihari about LDN - History of LDN

Want to know about LDN ....or  should I say.. Do you want to know MORE about LDN.?  By now, you should know the basics and then some if you have been reading my blogs that I've posted  about the treatment 

If you haven't watched anything or read anything about LDN, this is the one to watch. The doctor  answers a lot of questions and talks about how the drug works.  You'll understand it.   

Harvard-educated Bernard Bihari, MD is interviewed about his life, and his discovery of Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) for autoimmune diseases: multiple sclerosis, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease; also HIV/AIDS and some cancers. This video was given to me by Dr. Bihari's widow, Jacqueline Young.

The video is below.  The interviewer isn't that great cause you can't hear him to well.  Despite that, the Dr. is easy to understand and follow.   This is a long video  (fyi), not all may be interested if you don't care about knowing how the drug works to treat different diseases .  I watched the whole thing because I like such action packed videos.  lol  Im such a nerd!  

I wanted to hear what the man had to say about his advancements  that he discovered through his lifetime.  He's freaking awesome.  He speaks a lot about the research he was working on before he passed away which was HIV/AIDS and cancer and how LDN really is helpful with regulating the immune system .  But he's talking about the body and how the endorphins in the body effect the immune system/response.  He touches on the following points that you may be interested in watching 

I'm glad I watched this because I have a better understanding of how the medicine works in the body and helps balance/regulate the immune system.  His theory suggests that people with cancer, aids, autoimmune diseases have a lower than normal amt of endorphins in the body.  Its all about increasing the body's endorphins!

11:40 - talks about the improvement in AIDS patients with taking ldn, also talks about cancer patients

16:10 - He speaks about LDN and the endorphins. 

18:45 - cell death (cancer cells)caused by endorphins 

**20:19 - 23:00 ** I would def watch this part.  good explaining about the importance of endorphins more about how ldn works in the body (cancer patients... speaks about low endorphins  and how LDN raises the level of endorphins in the body) 

51:10 - the different endorphin receptors and what they effect in the body. interesting 

 He says around 30K-40K people take LDN.  

& Here it is...LISTEN --->  57:09 - 100:20 Touches on Autoimmune Diseases FINALLY.  My undertsanding of how this works goes like this I think.    -   .our t-helper cells get out of wack and get impaired  some how... (probably by a bacteria,  that throws it off) that therefore effects our killer cells & macrophages which get confused with the self vs the bacteria/fungus.  They get confused and attack own tissue/cells and not the foreign bacteria.  From what he says I think the LDN enhances the functioing of the t-cells by increasing the endorphin levels, the endorphins then regulate immune response

101:13 - the amount it costs to run clinical trials for LDN for each condition.  not sure if  he said 15 or 50 million for the 1st 3 trials.  He says that finding a drug company that would want to run the trials,  work w/ FDA, ability to manufacturer , distribute and then advertise is difficult.  

1:04:40 -  talked about low toxicity rate... it doesn't exist.  That's so bomb!, the cost (super cheap)..  Those aspects are probably the main reason LDN will never get approved to treat any other condition..  There's no money to make with this medicine, what would be the incentive.... to make people better... Yeah ok!! LOL  Guess doctors will just have to continue to write it as "off label use".  

VIDEO- Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) Pioneer Dr. Bernard Bihari Talks About His Work Through His Life

Background of Low Dose Naltrexone LDN

Naltrexone was licensed in 1984 by the FDA in a 50 mg dose as a treatment for heroin addiction. It is a pure opiate antagonist (blocking agent) and its purpose was to block the opioid receptors that heroin acts on in the brain. When it was licensed, Dr. Bihari, then involved in running programs for treating addiction, tried it in more than 50 heroin addicts who had stopped heroin use. None of the patients would stay on the drug because of side effects experienced at 50 mg such as insomnia, depression, irritability and loss of feelings of pleasure, all due to the effect of the drug at this dose in blocking endorphins. These are the hormones in the body that heroin resembles. Physicians treating heroin addicts therefore, for the most part, stopped prescribing naltrexone. In 1985, a large number of heroin addicts began to get sick with AIDS—studies showed that 50% of heroin addicts were HIV Positive.

Dr. Bihari and his colleagues decided to shift their research focus to AIDS, in particular focusing on ways of strengthening the immune system. Since endorphins are the hormones centrally involved in supporting and regulating the immune system, levels of endorphins were measured in the blood of AIDS patients. They were found to average only 25% of normal.

Naltrexone, when given to mice and people at high doses, raises endorphin levels in the body's effort to overcome the naltrexone blockade. This drug became the focus of Dr. Bihari's research group. When the group discovered that endorphins are almost all produced in the middle of the night, between 2 AM and 4 AM, the studies focused on small doses (1.5-4.5 mg at bedtime) with the hope that a brief period of endorphin blockade before 2 AM might induce an increase in the body's endorphin production. In fact, the drug did so in this dosage range. It had no effect below 1.5 mg and too much endorphin blockade at doses over 5 mg. A placebo-controlled trial in AIDS patients showed a markedly better outcome in patients on the drug as compared with those on placebo.

During the trial, a close friend of Dr. Bihari's daughter had three acute episodes of multiple sclerosis over a nine-month period with complete spontaneous recovery from each. Because of his knowledge of MS as a neurologist and of recent evidence of an autoimmune component in the disease, Dr. Bihari started his daughter's friend on naltrexone at 3 mg every night at bedtime. She took it for five years with no further attacks. At that point, when a particular month's supply ran out, she stopped it because of some denial that she had MS. Three and a half weeks later, she developed an episode of weakness, numbness, stiffness and spasms in her left arm and resumed LDN, which she has stayed on since. This episode cleared and over the 12 years since, she has had no further disease activity.

The apparent mechanism of action of LDN in this disease parallels that in AIDS and other immune-related diseases. A small dose of the drug taken nightly at bedtime doubles or triples the endorphin levels in the body all of the next day restoring levels to normal. Since endorphin levels are low in people with MS, immune function is poorly orchestrated with significant impairment of the normal immune supervisory function of CD4 cells. In the absence of normal orchestration of immune function, some of the immune system cells "forget" their genetically determined ability to distinguish between the body's 100,000 unique chemical structures (called "self") and the chemical structures of bacteria, fungi, parasites and cancer cells (called "non-self"). With this loss of immunologic memory, some cells begin to attack some of the body's unique chemical structures. In the case of people with MS, the tissue attacked by immune cells (particularly macrophages) is primarily the myelin that insulates nerve fibers. These attacks result in scars in the brain and spinal cord called plaques. LDN in such patients works by restoring endorphin levels to normal, thereby allowing the immune system to resume its normal supervision and orchestration.

There exists a common notion that the immune system in a person with an autoimmune disorder is too strong and, in its exuberance, targets a body tissue for attack. Rather, the evidence is more consistent with autoimmunity resulting from immunodeficiency.¹ Kukreja et al have demonstrated that multiple immunoregulatory T cell defects lie behind Type 1 diabetes both in humans and in non-obese diabetic mice.²

Multiple scientific papers from various other research centers have demonstrated that an underlying immunodeficiency is characteristic of any tested autoimmune disease. Examples thus far reported include multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease, and chronic fatigue syndrome.^{3, 4, 5}

Sacerdote et al measured low beta-endorphin levels in two animal examples of autoimmune disease — a mouse strain with a lupus-like syndrome and a strain of chicken with an autoimmune thyroiditis.⁶ They had significantly lower hypothalamic concentrations of the opioid than normal controls. In each case, the low levels of beta-endorphin were found well before the expression of autoimmune disease. This adds to considerable evidence of a key role for endorphins in regulating immune responses and suggests a therapeutic pathway.

Bihari et al found that a low oral dose of the opioid antagonist naltrexone, when taken at bedtime, led to a doubling or tripling of low levels of circulating beta-endorphin.⁷ Bihari has since treated some 100 people with autoimmune disorders. None of them has progressed further while the patient continued taking low dose naltrexone each night at bedtime. Since no side effects are apparently associated with its use, this medication might well be studied as a possible preventive for Type I diabetes in those youngsters with beta-cell autoantibodies.

Footnotes

1. Buckley RH. Primary Immunodeficiency Diseases Due to Defects in Lymphocytes. N Engl J Med. 2000; 343:1313-1324.
2. Kukreja A, Cost G, Marker J, et al. Multiple immuno-regulatory defects in type-1 diabetes. J Clin Invest. 2002;109(1):131-40.
3. Thewissen M, Linsen L, Somers V, Geusens P, Raus J, Stinissen P.Premature immunosenescence in rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis patients. Ann N Y Acad Sci. Jun 2005;1051: 255-62.
4. Marks DJ, Harbord MW, MacAllister R, Rahman FZ, Young J, Al-Lazikani B, Lees W, Novelli M, Bloom S, Segal AW. Defective acute inflammation in Crohn's disease: a clinical investigation. Lancet. Feb 2006;367 (9511): 668-78.
5. Vernon SD, Reeves WC. The challenge of integrating disparate high-content data: epidemiological, clinical and laboratory data collected during an in-hospital study of chronic fatigue syndrome. Pharmacogenomics. Apr 2006;7 (3): 345-54.
6. Sacerdote P, Lechner O, Sidman C, et al. Hypothalamic beta-endorphin concentrations are decreased in animals models of autoimmune disease. J Neuroimmunol. 1999;97(1-2):129-33.
7. Bihari B, Drury FM, Ragone VP, et al. Low Dose Naltrexone in the Treatment of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Oral Presentation at the IV International AIDS Conference, Stockholm, Jun 1988.

Dr. Skip Lenz at the 08 LDN Conference at USC, 

www.skipspharmacy.com - Very good Compounding Pharmacy for LDN

Video talks about taking other drugs with LDN (pain meds)

Dr. Lenz talks about patients' symptoms prior to taking LDN, after taking LDN & side-effects

 (aw poor guy. he said he only makes 32 cents/mo from the sales of LDN (fyi-he owns skips pharmacy..

LDN CONFERENCE (the sound quality is weird)

He says about 4500 doctors write scripts for LDN in the US(these are just #'s at his pharmacy)

He mentions how many people w/ Crohns take LDN from his pharmacy, 200 I believe. and he called Crohnies amazing people.. hahaa Go to 1:33.  He mentions Crystal the chick w/ the list of all doctors that prescribes LDN across the US and many other countries.  She was very helpful to me when i was searching for a prescribing Dr. (If you'd like to know which doctors prescribe in your area, just let me know.  I will give you her contact info)  

LDN CONFERENCE CONT..

Naltrexone is an opiate antagonist drug developed in the 1970s and approved by the FDA in 1984 for opiate and drug abuse treatment. When used at much lower doses in an off-label protocol referred to as low dose naltrexone (LDN), the drug has been shown to halt disease progression in Crohn's disease and certain cancers, to reduce symptoms in multiple sclerosis and autism, and to improve numerous autoimmune and neurodegenerative conditions, including Parkinson's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Grounded in clinical and scientific research, this book describes the history of naltrexone, its potential therapeutic uses, its effects on the immune system, its pharmacological properties, and how the drug is administered. It also lists fillers and compounding pharmacies, doctors who prescribe LDN, and patient resources, and includes interviews with LDN patients and researchers. *Author: Moore, Elaine A./ Wilkinson, Samantha/ Agrawal, Yash Pal *Binding Type: Paperback *Number of Pages: 213 *Publication Date: 2008/12/04 *Language: English *Dimensions: 8.80 x 5.90 x 0.70 inches

Fecal transplants cure diarrhea!! Wow what will they think of next

Interesting!!! Nuff said about this one.

Fecal transplants cure diarrhea, modulate testosterone levels

Nutella was not used as a placebo control.

by John Timmer - Jan 18 2013, 1:35pm EST

From some perspectives, we humans aren't really so much individuals as we are walking ecosystems—our bodies carry more bacterial cells—with their own genomes and agendas—than the total count of human cells we're composed of. Bacteria cover our skin, get to our food before we have the chance to absorb it, and in many cases stay helpfully out of the way of the immune system.

Given all that, it shouldn't be a surprise that we're finding that bacteria can have significant effects on the human body in ways that go well beyond causing an infection. Two articles that appeared this week drive that home. In one, doctors cured a recurring, diarrhea-causing infection simply by transplanting gut bacteria from a healthy individual. And in the second, the bacterial transplants altered the progression of type 1 (autoimmune) diabetes in mice—by altering the animal's testosterone levels.

Fighting bacteria with bacteria

Clostridium difficile, or C. diff, is a bacteria that tends to cause extended bouts of diarrhea. In about 20 percent of the cases that end up under a doctor's care, it will get into the digestive system and refuse to come back out, creating recurring bouts of illness that don't respond to most antibiotics. At that point, the standard of care is an intensive course of vancomycin, which only works in about 60 percent of patients. With each further recurrence, the rate of success goes down even further.

Anecdotal evidence and case reports had suggested that the problem wasn't so much the presence of C. diff as the fact that it had grown out of balance with the rest of the gut's bacterial ecosystem. To get the gut back into balance, fecal transplants had been tried and, anecdotally at least, they worked. So some doctors in the Netherlands decided to do a clinical trial, comparing a fecal transplant to standard care with vancomycin. The trial was what the researchers called "open label," meaning that people were aware they were having a feeding tube stuffed down their nose to deliver someone else's poop into their body. (A Twitter pundit suggested a Nutella infusion might make for a good placebo control.)

A few dozen healthy volunteers were screened for a huge panel of infectious diseases, and those who came through clean were asked to rush their bodies' first deliveries of the day to the hospital, where it was mixed with saline and had the particulates removed. The results then went into the gastro-nasal tube, given to patients after their original gut flora had been cleared out by a "bowel lavage."

The authors had originally planned to get 40 patients for each group, but the fecal transplants were so successful, they stopped the trial after only 16 patients had received a transplant. Of these, 13 (80 percent) were cured after a single transplant. Two of the remaining three were cured after their second, bringing the success rate up to over 90 percent. In contrast, the success rate of vancomycin treatments was down around 30 percent.

The biggest problem? Enrolling patients. Most people who agreed to participate in the trial only did so after conventional treatments failed several times, "reflecting the reluctance of patients and physicians to choose donor-feces infusion at an early stage."

Bacteria, sex, and immunity

It's easy to view this as a demonstration of the hygiene hypothesis, which posits that all sorts of health issues are linked to exposure to a variety of infectious agents, which the immune system then learns to live in harmony with. But a second paper appeared this week that cautioned against viewing things as being quite that simple.

The paper focused on the progression of type 1 diabetes, which is the product of an autoimmune attack on the insulin-producing cells. There's a special strain of mice, called NOD (for non-obese diabetic) that are prone to developing this disorder. The mice show properties that are very much like the human version of the disease: it's genetically complex, the progression is influenced by environmental factors, and it strikes females more severely than males.

And, unexpectedly, it's influenced by gut bacteria. There was some hint of this, given that other researchers had shown that a systematic exposure to bacterial proteins was able to suppress the development of the disease. But the authors found an unexpected effect when they tested how the disorder progressed in mice raised in germ-free conditions. Rather than accelerating the development of symptoms in all mice, the germ-free conditions accelerated the progression in males, making them (at least in this assay) indistinguishable from females.

So the researchers tried an experiment: they took germ-free NOD mice and did a fecal transplant from adult male animals (mice are naturally coprophagic, so the mice took a lot less convincing than did the humans). When female NOD mice received gut bacteria from males, it actually slowed the disease progression down. The apparent sex difference in autoimmune function was mediated in part by gut bacteria.

Your first thought might be that testosterone in males could create a different environment in the gut, causing it to host a different diversity of species. It's a reasonable guess, but it's wrong. Instead, the researchers found that the transplant of gut bacteria caused a surge in testosterone production by females that lasted for up to 14 weeks. This had no effect on the female's fertility, but it did clearly alter immune function. If the authors injected these mice with a testosterone inhibitor, the diabetes protection went away.

All of which indicates that the other intuitive idea—that gut bacteria influence immune function by interacting directly with immune cells—also can't be right, or at least can't be everything. Clearly, the production of testosterone, by whatever cells may be producing it, plays a key role.

Although the papers argue against some of the simpler views of human health—bacteria are all bad, or not having exposure to pathogens means an overactive immune system—they both argue that viewing our bodies as a complex ecosystem can help provide insight into human health.

New England Journal of medicine, 2013. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1205037 and Science, 2013. DOI:10.1126/science.1233521  (About DOIs).

Fecal transplants cure diarrhea, modulate testosterone levels | Ars Technica:

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Health Benefits from #Probiotics-Definitely Does The Body Good

I use probiotics, I have to in order to keep my gut balanced.  My Integrated Medicine doctor started me on a probiotic that has done wonders for me.  I attribute a lot of my intestinal healing from taking this combination of Bifidobacterium manufactured by Metagenics.  I recently foound out that the company discontinued this product.  I bought almost all the bottles that my doctor had available, but i'm not sure what I'm going to do when I finish them all.  I'm not having any luck finding anything similar made by other companies and other users of this particular probiotic don't do well either without this combo of Bifidobacterium.   

Probiotics' Benefits May Be More Than a Gut Feeling - WSJ.com

Probiotics, believed to help with digestion, are increasingly being studied to treat wide-ranging conditions, from colic to cholesterol and the common cold.

One of the fastest-growing dietary supplements, probiotics are now prominent on drug and big-box store shelves. They are live microorganisms—or "good" bacteria—that when consumed in capsules or yogurt are said to confer a health benefit. So far, however, there is little scientific proof of their effectiveness—many studies of probiotics have involved less-than-rigorous research standards.

As further data become available, some researchers believe probiotics may evolve into prescription drugs, as doctors focus on specific bacteria strains to target patients' particular conditions. At the moment, however, many experts say probiotics are misunderstood.

"Consumers have shown to be willing to spend the money, just in case [probiotics] work," says Michael Fischbach, an assistant professor of bioengineering and therapeutic sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. "What we all have to be careful about is to not view them as a panacea and to make sure that we don't raise our expectations too high."

U.S. sales of probiotic supplements totaled nearly $770 million last year, up some 22% from the previous year, according to Euromonitor International, a market research firm.

The strongest clinical studies have suggested some probiotics may be beneficial for certain gastrointestinal problems, allergies and vaginal infections. Many doctors recommend probiotics when patients are taking antibiotics. Probiotics are widely considered safe except for people with an impaired immune system, though experts recommend talking to a doctor first.

For other ailments, hundreds of probiotic studies are currently under way, experts say. In a report last month in the British Journal of Nutrition, researchers at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-School of Health Related Professions said a combination of two probiotics may reduce the symptoms and recovery time for the common cold. Other studies have shown similar results, especially with children.

Researchers this month presented evidence at a meeting of the American Heart Association showing that two daily doses of a probiotic lowered bad cholesterol by nearly 12% and reduced total and saturated cholesterol esters which contribute to the hardening of arteries. The study was funded by Micropharma Ltd., a Canadian probiotic research and production company.

Some studies have federal backing. UCSF is exploring possible effects of probiotics on infants and early markers of asthma, as well as on colic. Harvard Medical School researchers are studying what good bacteria might do for the immune system to see if the response to flu vaccine in elderly people can be improved.

The body contains trillions of bacteria, both good and bad. Most live in the gut but they also colonize other areas. Good bacteria help digest food, produce vitamins and protect from infections, among other things.

The Flora Inside

Probiotics are 'good' bacteria believed to confer health benefits.

• Products ranging from yogurt to household cleaners contain probiotics.
• Sales of probiotic supplements totaled $770 million last year, up 22% from 2010.
• For supplements, experts suggest sticking to well-known brands like Culturelle, VSL#3, Align and Florastor.
• Different probiotic strains can affect the body differently. Strains should be listed on a product label.
• Probiotics are largely unregulated but they can't make claims to cure or prevent a disease.

The community of bacteria, the body's intestinal flora, begins at birth, says Esi Lamousé-Smith, an instructor in medicine at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. By age 3 these bacteria, sometimes referred to as our gut or intestinal microbiome, are more or less set, she says. Each person's microbiome is distinct and doesn't change significantly with age unless a person becomes ill, takes an antibiotic or makes major changes in diet.

A probiotic, which adds good bacteria only for the time it is being taken, seems to influence other bacteria already present. For example, it might stimulate other bacteria to turn on or off certain genes. These genes, in turn, might be involved in various functions, such as immune regulation or nutrient metabolism.

"I am wholeheartedly a believer" in probiotics, says Maureen Fitzgerald, a Germantown, Wis., resident who blogs about parenting issues.

As a former teacher, Ms. Fitzgerald was exposed to many germs and says she was looking for something to "beef up" her immune system. Once she started regularly taking probiotics she says she wasn't "getting as many of the colds and the bugs that are around." About five years ago, Ms. Fitzgerald's then 3-year-old son began taking a children's probiotic that cleared up digestion problems he was having. After that, Ms. Fitzgerald says she was hooked on the supplements. She raved about probiotics on her blog and has since received free samples, which she reviews.

There are many different strains of probiotics and each may affect the body differently. The dosage—or number of colony-forming units—in a probiotic is also important. Lactobacilli and bifidobacteria are the two most widely studied types of probiotics. Lactobacillus rhamnosus, widely known as LGG, may treat viral and antibiotic-induced diarrhea, and certain allergies, like childhood eczema. A strain ofLactobacillus reuteri has been shown to help with colic. Bifidobacterium animalis, found in some brands of yogurt, is said to improve digestion.

Experts say taking a probiotic supplement with many bacterial strains isn't necessarily better. The key is ensuring each strain in a product is active and has been clinically proven to work at a certain dosage, they say. Tests done by ConsumerLab.com have shown that the number of living organisms in probiotics doesn't always reflect the label. Of 12 products tested this year, two delivered fewer organisms than listed.

Probiotics aren't required to obtain Food and Drug Administration approval before being marketed. "Right now they're considered a food product or dietary supplement, not a drug," says Gerard Mullin, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and author of "The Inside Tract."

There aren't any FDA approved health claims for probiotics, says Diane Hoffmann, a law professor at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, who oversaw a study on the federal regulation of probiotics. But companies can make broader statements, called "structure function" claims. It is the difference between saying a product reduces the risk of heart disease versus supports a healthy heart. Because the difference isn't discernible to many consumers, there is little incentive in the industry to pursue costlier and more resource-intensive health claims.

"Consumers just need to know that claims are not necessarily preapproved and they may not be well substantiated," says Ms. Hoffmann.

In the short term, experts recommend sticking with the strains of probiotics that have a lot of science behind them, like Lactobacillus GG, and brands that have proven to be safe and truthful in labeling.

Dr. Mullin, of Johns Hopkins, says the future may lie in concocting specific probiotics for people based upon their individual needs and microbiomes.

Probiotics' Benefits May Be More Than a Gut Feeling - WSJ.com:

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