It’s not a study. It’s an opinion piece. And though IANAS, even I appreciate that publishing your ideas before you’ve even attempted to test them yourself is barely one step up from YouTube videos on the scale of Why Should Anyone Else Care.
Maybe someone in the field can pitch in, but I also saw this sentence in the article: "I have previously hypothesised that all human chronic autoimmune diseases are caused by Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) infection of autoreactive B cells,"
So it seems he's been hovering around the EBV hypothesis for longer than that so I am also curious if there was any real progress and whether this is something the medical research community is treating seriously.
This is why we developed the scientific method, to act as a filter for such human follies. That the author is still hypothesizing instead of rolling up his sleeves and doing the actual work to DISprove his own ideas speaks volumes.
Or, to put it another way: it is not sufficient merely to gird oneself in the mantle of Marshall and Warren; one must also swallow the H Pylori and serve their hard time on the shitter.
EBV has been linked to several autoimmune illnesses in recent years, so yes it’s treated seriously by those who have stayed abreast of that research. (It’s also been linked to certain cancers previously.) But as for whether it causes all human autoimmune illnesses, that seems a bit of a stretch. I don’t think you’d find many believing that. (Lots of infections can cause autoimmunity. The neurological damage / and long term post infection chronic fatigue that some COVID patients are suffering for example may likely be autoimmune related.)
Well, they are developing a vaccine, and any new findings about diseases linked to EBV would raise the value of the vaccine. I think it's safe to say that the medical community is indeed very interested in this.
"Epstein-Barr virus, or EBV, is one of the most common human viruses in the world. It spreads primarily through saliva. EBV can cause infectious mononucleosis, also called mono, and other illnesses. Most people will get infected with EBV in their lifetime and will not have any symptoms. Mono caused by EBV is most common among teens and adults."
This implies that the genetic link is somewhat of a coincidence, the family members just happen to have all caught the same virus? Is that the right interpretation? Because BD does seem to come in waves in families.
It’s not just that they caught the virus, but that their immune systems are unable to defeat the virus. So, the battle remains active for life, and becomes a chronic infection.
Presumably, this would suggest that the genetic component is the susceptibility to the virus, and inability to defeat it.
I'm a layman but I read the paper. The paper's main points are that people with bipolar show a specific lack of some chemicals that Epstein-Barr Virus infections can cause, it argues that this theory would explain lithium being paradoxically good at treating BD (for some technical reasons it gets into), and further there's ample evidence that mood disorders and autoimmune disorders have a high comorbdity, with the author suggesting that the two are more deeply related.
If you use too much toilet paper all the time then something is wrong with your diet and you should try figuring out what the cause is. Once your diet has improved you won't need more than one wipe.
I doubt this will help with bipolar disorder specifically though. This is mostly helpful for people who don't get enough fiber.
