Endometriosis...

'To this day despite a plethora of scientific information and clinical observations its aetiology remains unresolved, its pathology disputed, and its treatment inadequate.'
International Society for Gynaecologic Endoscopy

Earlier this year Dr Ness reported that, in addition to the obvious pain and distress, ‘endometriosis may need to be considered as a risk factor for ovarian and breast cancer.’ However, just a year ago, Dr Garcia-Velasco concluded that, even after the length of time many sufferers have to wait for a diagnosis, current treatments are only ‘moderately effective in reducing pain but ineffective in improving fertility’.

Yet endometriosis has no reason to exist and can be reversed, eliminating pain and restoring full fertility without surgery or medicine. Now, for the first time, a treatment that simply removes the cause of the condition is to be offered with an exclusive money-back guarantee to members of the Endometriose Stichting.

It has become de rigueur to claim that the cause of endometriosis is unknown but each of the five mission-critical events that culminate in the condition are not only known but form the basis of the drugs in use and under development. Dr Garcia-Velasco again, ‘current research has focused upon medications designed to attack specific aspects of the development and maintenance of endometriosis. This includes progesterone receptor modulators, gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) analogs, aromatase inhibitors and, tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFalpha) inhibitors, angiogenesis inhibitors, matrix metalloproteinase inhibitors and estrogen receptor beta agonists like inmunomodulators.’

Sadly, each of these drugs, while being largely ineffectual, also carries unwanted and extremely harmful side effects. What has been totally missed is that each of the mission-critical events is initiated and maintained by a single event that is capable of being prevented without surgery or medicine making endometriosis extremely vulnerable and capable of being both arrested and prevented. The web page epc-odx.com/endo shows, in the form of flow charts, exactly how these mission critical events are initiated, each step being proven with citations from the scientific journals.

Faced with the means of arresting and preventing a disease that is suffered by tens of thousands of individuals many will question as to why physicians are not already taking advantage of the opportunity. Physicians have failed to grasp that each of the mission critical events that characterize endometriosis is simply the end result of chronic immune activation. The flow charts referred to show that each of these events is initiated and maintained by chemicals generated by the neutrophil (PMN). Dr Cassatella reported in 2000 that ‘neutrophils not only play an important role in eliciting and sustaining inflammation, but may also significantly contribute to the regulation of immune reactions.’ He concludes by saying that, ‘the current conception of the roles played by neutrophils in pathophysiological (ie disease creating) processes is in dire need of being redefined.’

Equally, physicians are largely unaware that the PMN is activated by ‘non-self’; the immune system is ‘programmed’ to react to non-self, thus it is essential to determine the source of the non-self and remove it rather than trying to modulate the immune system as the various drugs have tried to do – largely unsuccessfully. The majority of non-self that the body is exposed to comes from an almost entirely unexpected source, food. If physicians are unaware of the effect of non-self on PMN they are extremely hostile to idea that food can result in illness, while they are comfortable with food as a source of energy (calories) and nourishment (vitamin, mineral etc) they are almost totally ignorant of its pathological potential in the form of non-self.

And yet, by constantly stimulating an immune response, food is responsible for the generation and release of those chemicals that result in endometriosis. Equally, identifying and removing those foods leads to an almost immediate resolution of the condition. Dr Bullimore reported in 2003 that endometriosis is initiated and sustained by the protein TNF alpha, i.e. that the disease is unsustainable without the generation of excessive TNF alpha. The activated PMN is the main source of TNF alpha; once this source is removed, endometriosis can be reversed in a matter of weeks, while the source is ignored, endometriosis continues.

Recently, Dr D’Hooghe reported that an anti-TNF alpha treatment had proven successful in treating endometriosis. Again sadly, ten percent of the subjects (baboons) died as a side effect of the treatment. At present, drugs can only be used to stop the production of the chemicals that create endometriosis but these chemicals have many legitimate tasks to perform and their complete withdrawal leaves the body unprotected and vulnerable. The real requirement is to reduce over-expression of the chemical not to bring about its complete removal, this can only be done by removing the source of the over-expression and it is just this that is on offer.

STOP PRESS
The media has recently carried reports of what the authors claim to be a ‘crucial step in finding the answer to endometriosis.’ Team leader, Prof Jacques Donnez says, ‘we are focusing our research more on the origins and causes of the disease in the context of prevention, than on surgical treatment when the disease is already present’. And the nature of the crucial step? Simply the discovery of high iron in the pelvises of sufferers. Again, as with the work on TNF alpha, rather than inquiring as to the reasons behind an increase in iron, the authors look forward to the use of iron binding-molecules as a future treatment ignoring the fact that iron is essential for the maintenance of health.

And yet increased iron load is entirely consistent with the chronic immune activation model presented here. Iron levels are strictly controlled, as the research team should have been aware, by the peptide hormone hepcidin. Hepcidin controls the supply of iron but it is inhibited by hypoxia, a condition caused by the free oxidizing radicals released by immune activation. With too little hepcidin iron levels are free to rise, uncontrolled, but free oxidizing radicals, in damaging red cells, not only create hypoxia but also release iron from the red cells adding to the iron load and thus to the proliferation of endometrial cells.

Contrary to the media hype, this is not a breakthrough or a crucial step; it is merely confirmation of the immune activation model of endometriosis. Progress is not dependent upon the extremely hazardous development and use of iron-binding drugs; the increased iron is simply another consequence of immune activation, reducing the hypoxia brought about by immune activation restores hepcidin levels and brings iron directly under control free from the threat of side effects. Such ‘treatment’ is available immediately.