via CCSVI at UBC MS Clinic - Information and Support, Hypothesis - You may need the vagus nerve to understand pathophysiology and to treat diseases
http://www.clinsci.org/cs/122/cs1220323.htm Marijke De Couck*, Boris Mravec†‡ and Yori Gidron*
*Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Brussels, Belgium, †Institute of Pathophysiology, Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia, and ‡Institute of Experimental Endocrinology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia
Key words: Alzheimer's disease, cancer, cardiovascular disease, heart rate variability, neuromodulation, vagus nerve.
Abbreviations: AD, Alzheimer's disease; CRP, C-reactive protein; CVD, cardiovascular disease; HRV, heart rate variability; IL-1, interleukin-1; MetS, metabolic syndrome; PSA, prostate-specific antigen; SNS, sympathetic nervous system; VNS, vagus nerve stimulation.
Correspondence: Professor Yori Gidron (email Yori.Gidron@vub.ac.be).
Can different pathophysiological mechanisms and risk factors leading to various diseases be linked with altered transmission of signals by one common pathway? The present article provides evidence for the hypothesis that adequate vagal nerve activity reduces the risk of major diseases, via common basic mechanisms and interim risk factors. These diseases include cardiovascular disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease and the metabolic syndrome. Three basic mechanisms contribute to such illnesses: local oxidative stress and DNA damage, inflammatory reactions and excessive sympathetic responses, all of which are inhibited by vagal nerve activity. Efferent vagal activity that can be non-invasively measured by HRV (heart rate variability), derived from an ECG, is inversely related to all three basic mechanisms, to various risk factors (e.g. diabetes and dyslipidaemia) and, more broadly, to the diseases as well. Finally, vagal activity is proposed to moderate the effects of risk factors on developing such illnesses. By proposing an integrative neurobiological model of major diseases, identifying people at risk for, and treating patients with, such diseases may be done more efficiently. People with low HRV may be identified and subsequently treated by vagus nerve activation to possibly prevent or treat such illnesses. This proposed disease paradigm may have important preventative and therapeutic implications, whose clinical effects need to be investigated.
Received 9 June 2011/30 August 2011; accepted 27 September 2011
Published on the Internet 7 December 2011, doi:10.1042/CS20110299
Clinical Science (2012) 122, 323-328 - M. De Couck, B. Mravec and Y. Gidron - Role of the vagus nervwww.clinsci.org
Abbreviations: AD, Alzheimer's disease; CRP, C-reactive protein; CVD, cardiovascular disease; HRV, heart rate variability; IL-1, interleukin-1; MetS, metabolic syndrome; PSA, prostate-specific antigen; SNS, sympathetic nervous system; VNS, vagus nerve stimulation.