FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE BLOG
Includes over 800 monographs reporting on emerging studies in the medical and scientific literature of practical clinical importance, easily searched for content.
Hepatitis C antibody-postive patients need but often don't get confirmatory testing
Hepatitis C infection needs to be confirmed by PCR (RNA or DNA amplification) because antibody levels can remain high for many years after the infection is completely cleared by antimicrobial therapy or innate immunity. This is true for numerous other pathogens as well including Borrelia b. (Lyme disease). A paper just published in The American Journal of Medicine documents that RNA testing for hepatitis C is often not done.
Chronic Lyme disease, post-Lyme disease syndrome and insights from the pathophysiology of sepsis
Chronic Lyme disease, now correctly termed post-Lyme disease syndrome (PLDS), has challenged and confused practitioners and patients unfamiliar with the potential autoimmune sequelae of infection... The principles of managing autoimmunity, triggered by infection or not, entail discernment of the multiple underlying mechanisms contributing to loss of immune tolerance of self-tissue...This must be borne in mind by the clinician managing either autoimmunity triggered by Lyme or other infections