Determining what works in the fight to reverse a disorder as puzzling and elusive as lupus is a mystery indeed. First you have to define the problem. Churchill’s Medical Dictionary defines lupus as “a multisystem disease of unknown ethiology.” The American Journal of Medicine calls it “a chronic inflammatory disease of the connective tissue resulting from unknown cause.” _ Oh, there is a help: “unknown causes.”
A little more information comes from the academic American Encyclopedia, which state that lupus ia an autoimmune disease in which the body produces abnormal antibodies that attack normal body tissue as though it were a foreign invader. Now we are getting somewhere! I will get back to this issue in a moment.
For those of you uncertain, confused, or dismissed by conventional medicine, here are the symptoms. Dicoid lupus is a skin disorder characterized by a rash over the nose and cheeks in a butterfly pattern. Another form occurs in a result of certain prescription drugs. The most common - SLE – causes joint pain and inflammation, fever an fatigue. A little less than half of people with lupus get facial rushes. No single test diagnoses the disease, but in the majority of cases 50-90 percent), patients test positive for lupuserythematosus cells, white blood cells that destroy other white cells. Of the approximately 500,00 lupus patients in the United States, most are women. About 1 in 700 women aged 15 to 64 is afflicted. If not alleviated, SLE can cause permanent damage to the kidneys, heart, lungs, liver, nervous system, joints and skin.
What are these abnormal antibodies that attack normal body tissue? Researchers are beginning to think they are what is called antiphospholipid antibodies. Phosphholipids are charged with fighting invasions of fat molecules in cell membranes. When phospholipids are sestoyed or minimized by a high-saturated fat-processed food diet, the organ of the body become bloated with fat, and cannot function properly. When the body produces antibodies that kill phospholipids, researchers call them antiphopholipid antibodies.
New research points to DHEA. From me to you: cutting edge research found nowhere else that could mean a breakthrough for lupus sufferers! Researchers at the Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, California, recently designed a study seeking to determine the therapeutic benefits of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) in ten female patients with mild to moderate SLE, DHEA is a naturally occurring adrenal hormone. The women were given 200 mg of DHEA orally for three to six months, with the patients improving enough to reduce their need for prescribed corticosteroids. The researchers conclude that DHEA “holds promise as an new therapeutic agent for the treatment of mild to moderate systemic lupus erythematosus.
Dr. Wright has found that in women with lupus, 80 percent were low in the hormone testosterone, and recommends that doctors with lupus patients perform a hormone panel. When it comes to DHEA, it is best to use it with a responsible doctor’s supervision as too much of it can cause male pattern baldness- especially in women. The maker of DHEA are currently battling the FDA system in order to get this natural substance to health food store shelves, by the way they succeeded in doing so, DHEA can be purchased in any health food store.
