Keeping Frontline Workers Safe: New Program Will Educate Firefighters At Risk for Lyme Disease

Functional Medicine for First Responders

BAL Leading the Way Series

 

Dr Sunjya SchweigSunjya Schweig, MD, founder of the California Center for Functional Medicine, discusses a new program he is developing with funding from Bay Area Lyme to provide education and awareness about Lyme disease and the risks of tick-borne infections for firefighters. Firefighters have a profile of unique occupational exposures, including tick bites, and there is a significant lack of education on this topic. This new program aims to create professional, engaging videos featuring firefighters sharing their experiences and providing information on tick bite prevention, checking for ticks, and what to do if bitten. The goal is to roll out the program in California first, targeting professional firefighter and first responder organizations and eventually expanding nationwide. The exact number of firefighters living with Lyme disease is unknown, but it is acknowledged that they have both occupational and recreational exposures. This new program is seen as a way to bring awareness and education to this population and beyond.

“Lyme is not really on the radar for many firefighters. They may have had tick bites either in the line of duty or out mountain biking or hiking when they’re off duty, but many don’t know that tick-borne disease is a big problem.” 

– Sunjya Schweig, MD

New Study Reveals Potential Treatment for Neurologic Lyme Disease

Geetha Parthasarathy, PhD

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 New Study Reveals Potential Treatment for Neurologic Lyme Disease

Blocking certain fibroblast growth factor receptors is shown to be effective in reducing inflammation and cell death caused by neurologic Lyme infection in laboratory studies

PORTOLA VALLEY, Calif. April 18, 2024—Bay Area Lyme Foundation, a leading sponsor of Lyme disease research in the US, recently announced the publication of a laboratory study showing that fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) inhibitors may be appropriate as an anti-inflammatory supplementary treatment for neurologic Lyme disease, for which there are no universally effective treatments. Published in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Immunology, this study shows FGFRs are activated in response to both live and non-viable Lyme bacteria in preclinical brain tissue models. Further, inhibition of FGFR1, FGFR2, and FGFR3 may help mitigate the neuroinflammatory and neuropathogenic effects of infection by the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi.  

“Our research shows a potential connection between neurological Lyme disease and several other neurological conditions, and this common pathway may explain why Lyme can be confused with many other conditions. Increasing our knowledge of FGFRs and their effect on the brain will help us understand the common mechanisms that may underlie Lyme disease and other neurological diseases,” said Geetha Parthasarathy, PhD, assistant professor at Tulane National Primate Research Center, Tulane School of Medicine, and a Bay Area Lyme Foundation 2019 Emerging Leader Award winner. “This data shows that FGFRs can be novel targets of anti-inflammatory therapeutics in Lyme patients with persistent neuroinflammation.”

“Our findings from this and our previous studies also offer important insight that may help to explain why some patients still experience chronic neurological symptoms even after a short course of antibiotics,” added Dr. Parthasarathy.

If Pain Had a Sound: The Hunt for Relief is Riddled with Hope and Madness

Katie Liljedahl's Lyme story

Written by: Katie Liljedahl, Lyme patient

BAL Spotlights Series

 

Katie’s journey with Lyme disease, as recounted three years ago, highlights the ongoing challenges faced by those affected by this debilitating illness. Despite her perseverance and a wonderful support system, Katie continues to grapple with intermittent flares. However, amidst these struggles, Katie has found a new home and a new love, demonstrating resilience in the face of adversity. Her story serves as a poignant reminder of the urgent need to improve Lyme disease diagnosis and treatment, ensuring that others do not endure similar hardships. By amplifying voices like Katie’s, we strive together towards a future where Lyme disease is easy to diagnose and simple to cure, allowing individuals to reclaim their lives and pursue their passions without the burden of infection-associated chronic illness. 

Spine strangled, muscles on fire, bones buzzing
I will migrate within you
I am relentless
My address is your body
This is the kind of pain that rages silently in
the caverns of marrow and suffocates hope.
It gyrates and bangs clamors and rattles
A parasite upon the soul~
it drowns out the voice of God.

– Katie’s journal; August 16, 2012

Top Lifestyle Interventions to Aid Recovery in Tick-borne Illness: An Interactive Discussion with Concrete Takeaways

Dr Sunjya Schweig Speaker Series

BAL Spotlights Series

 

In this article transcribed from our Distinguished Speaker Series webinar, Sunjya Schweig, MD, founder and CEO of the California Center for Functional Medicine and member of Bay Area Lyme’s Scientific Advisory Board, discusses how recovering from tick-borne illnesses can be aided through carefully devised combinations of conventional and functional medicine, tailored to the individual person. Nancy Chimsky, retired interior designer and Lyme patient, who has been challenged with tick-borne infections since 1997, shares her personal Lyme story in the first part of this webinar.

Dr. Schweig discussed the top four lifestyle areas critical to aiding recovery and explains how and why optimizing each area is key to treating and managing Lyme and tick-borne disease. The lifestyle areas are:

  • Diet and nutrition
  • Stress reduction and neuroplasticity
  • Sleep
  • Detoxification

Dr. Schweig also discussed the important role that botanical and herbal medicines have in recovery. He discusses the individualized nature of treatment and testing for Lyme disease, including the use of various lab tests and the consideration of co-infections. Finally, Dr. Schweig emphasizes the importance of finding the right healthcare practitioner who can address the complexity of Lyme disease and provide appropriate treatment. The session concludes with a Q&A session about what people are doing to manage their health, and Dr. Schweig provided practical suggestions and concrete takeaways based on these questions from attendees.

Lyme Patient, Shellie Krick, Discusses a Better, Calmer Way to Get Through the Day

Shellie Krick Blog

BAL Spotlights Series

In her book, The Art of Living With Chronic Illness, Pain, and Disability: A Practical and Spiritual Approach Inspired by the 12-Step Recovery Model, author, and former social worker Shellie Krick, explores how she used the 12-step Al-Anon program as a template to cope with her Lyme disease. Shellie has experienced over 30 years of chronic health problems stemming from Lyme and Bartonella infections, misdiagnosis, and dangerous, unproven treatments—some of which caused serious harm. Her book stems from her personal journey, offering a step-by-step guide to developing a different way of handling daily life with a chronic illness or chronic pain.

 “I definitely wasn’t the type of person who liked sitting around doing nothing—Lyme has been really hard on me in that way. But through my book, if I can help just one person cope with their situation better, then I will feel I have accomplished a lot.”

– Shellie Krick

Bay Area Lyme Foundation ELA Winner Uses Metabolic Modeling to Predict 77 Unique Drug Targets in Lyme Disease Bacterium

Peter Gwynne, PhD

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

Bay Area Lyme Foundation ELA Winner Uses Metabolic Modeling to Predict 77 Unique Drug Targets in Lyme Disease Bacterium

Results will help inform future research and development of new Lyme disease therapeutics

PORTOLA VALLEY, Calif., October 19, 2023—Bay Area Lyme Foundation, a leading sponsor of Lyme disease research in the US, today announced the findings of a study identifying new essential gene and enzyme drug targets in Lyme disease bacterium, which resulted, in-part, from a grant provided to Peter Gwynne, one of Bay Area Lyme Foundation’s 2022 Emerging Leader Award (ELA) winners. Published in the peer-reviewed journal mSystems, the study uses the most comprehensive metabolic modeling to date to predict 77 unique drug targets in Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease—a condition affecting nearly 500,000 new patients annually.

“Lyme disease is often treated using long courses of antibiotics, which can cause side effects for patients and risks the evolution of antimicrobial resistance. Our research supplies the blueprint and scaffolding to build better Lyme disease therapeutics that do not have off-target effects for patients,” said Peter Gwynne, PhD, lead author on the study, research assistant professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, and Emerging Leader Award winner of the Bay Area Lyme Foundation. “Many of the 77 genes and enzymes predicted as essential represent candidate targets for the development of novel antiborrelial drug development.”

Current clinical guidelines recommend treatment of Lyme borreliosis with broad-spectrum antibiotics, which can pose risks to the patient’s microbiome. The bacterium that causes Lyme disease is extremely host-dependent, with a small genome and limited metabolism—making it an excellent candidate for the development of targeted, narrow-spectrum antimicrobials.

In the study, the researchers used in silico genome-scale metabolic computer modeling to construct a map of B. burgdorferi metabolism. This map was used to predict essential genes and enzymes that can be used as drug targets. Gwynne and the Tufts University School of Medicine research team validated these targets by repurposing existing drugs that kill B. burgdorferi in culture. While these drugs are not viable treatment options themselves, they provide a blueprint for future novel drug development.

A Broader Definition of Health Through Ancestral Learning, Diet and Better Understanding of the Human Body

Chris Kresser

Ticktective Podcast Transcript

 

In this podcast episode, host Lia Gaertner interviews Chris Kresser, a renowned expert in functional medicine and ancestral health. Kresser shares his personal health journey, which involved struggling with chronic illness and eventually finding his way to functional medicine. He discusses the importance of zooming in and zooming out in managing chronic illness, as well as the broader definition of health as human flourishing. Kresser also talks about his approach to diet, which involves giving himself permission to eat a variety of foods while prioritizing those that make him feel good. He emphasizes the importance of the ecosystem in managing chronic illness, focusing on factors such as gut health, lifestyle, stress management, and finding joy and fulfillment in life. Kresser concludes by offering advice to individuals with Lyme disease and chronic illness, highlighting the significance of addressing the entire ecosystem rather than solely focusing on the pathogen.

 

Lia Gaertner: Welcome to the Ticktective podcast and video series, a program of the Bay Area Lyme Foundation, where our mission is to make Lyme disease easy to diagnose and simple to cure. I’m your host, Lia Gaertner, director of Education and outreach. Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne disease in the USA and is a global issue. This show includes interviews with the researchers we fund, as well as other interesting people in the Lyme scientific community. We are a nonprofit foundation based in Silicon Valley. Thanks to a generous grant that covers all of our overhead, 100% of all donations go directly to support, research and prevention programs. You can find out more or donate@bayarealyme.org.

Lia Gaertner: Thank you, Chris Kresser, for joining me on the Ticktective™ video and podcast series.

Chris Kresser: Thanks for having me, Lia. It’s a pleasure.

The Paleo Cure by Chris KresserLia Gaertner: Chris Kresser is a renowned expert leading clinician and top educator in the fields of functional medicine and ancestral health. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Paleo Cure, as well as the book Unconventional Medicine. Chris is the co-founder and educational director of the California Center for Functional Medicine and the founder of the Kresser Institute. Chris regularly shares his evidence-based insights from trusted sources and world-renowned health practitioners and coaches through his blogs, webcast interviews, and his own podcast, Revolution Health Radio. So, Chris, during your decade-long struggle with chronic illness, you learned firsthand where healthcare mattered most and where it came up short. After seeking the help of more than 30 healthcare practitioners and ultimately having to learn and implement behavior changes on your own with limited support, you emerged with your health and a vision and drive for changing and improving the practice and education of functional medicine. Can you please tell us about your health journey?

Chris Kresser: I’ll be brief because it was long and arduous, but I took off to travel around the world for a couple of years in my early twenties, and I was doing a lot of surfing. I was in a little village on Sumbawa, which is an island in Indonesia, and a bunch of the people there who were surfing at that break got exposed to a waterborne pathogen, actually several pathogens. There was a stagnant pool of water near the river mouth there, and locals dug a trench to drain that pool into the river mouth. And all of that water where cows had been defecating went out into the surf break, which are often located right at the river mouth. And unbeknownst to a lot of us who were there surfing, we were exposed to it and I would say 70-80% of the people there got quite sick.

I took some antibiotics that I had in my medical kit and the acute phase of it passed relatively quickly. But as I continued to travel after that, I went to the Maldives and was there for a few months and I was in South Africa and Reunion Island, Mauritius, and Madagascar. After about six, seven months, I started feeling really sick and it became clear to me that it wasn’t something that was just temporary that was going to go away. So, I made my way back to Australia and that was where I started to seek medical care. And then when I didn’t make much progress, I decided to go back home to the US and although most of the doctors and other practitioners I saw meant very well and did their best to help me, it was pretty clear that the medical system was not set up to deal with those kinds of problems.

Herbal Medicines Demonstrate Potency Against Bartonella, a Disease-causing Pathogen, According to New Lab Study

Herbal Medicines Demonstrate Potency Against Bartonella

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Media Contact:
Tara DiMilia, 908-947-0500, tara.dimilia@TMstrat.com

Herbal Medicines Demonstrate Potency Against Bartonella, a Disease-causing Pathogen, According to New Lab Study

Three of these herbal medicines also have high potency against Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, and Babesia duncani, according to previous lab studies also funded by Bay Area Lyme Foundation

PORTOLA VALLEY, CA, August 5, 2021—Bay Area Lyme Foundation, a leading sponsor of Lyme disease research in the U.S., today announced the publication of new data showing that herbal medicines have potent activity in test tubes compared to pharmaceuticals commonly-prescribed for the treatment of Bartonella henselae, a bacterium believed  to be carried by ticks and the cause of cat scratch fever. This is the first study to find antimicrobial activity of some of these herbal medicines. Published in the journal Infectious Microbes & Diseases, the laboratory study was funded in part by the Bay Area Lyme Foundation.

“With increasing rates of tick-borne diseases and a consistent concern about the overuse of antibiotics, this early research of herbals is extremely exciting,” said Linda Giampa, executive director, Bay Area Lyme Foundation. “We are hopeful that future pre-clinical and clinical studies will continue to show that herbals have the same effectiveness as this study and other recently-published studies.”

Five Herbal Medicines Potent Against Tick-Borne Disease Babesiosis in Lab, Says New Study

Five Herbal Medicines Potent Against Tick-borne Disease Babesiosis in Lab says Dr Sunjya Schweig

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Media Contact:
Tara DiMilia, 908-947-0500, tara.dimilia@TMstrat.com

Five Herbal Medicines Potent Against Tick-Borne Disease Babesiosis in Lab, Says New Study

Research Supported by Bay Area Lyme Foundation Points to Need for More Effective Treatments Compared to Currently Utilized Treatments for Tick-Borne Infections

PORTOLA VALLEY, CA, March 9, 2021 — Bay Area Lyme Foundation, a leading sponsor of Lyme disease research in the U.S., today announced the publication of new data finding that five herbal medicines had potent activity compared to commonly-used antibiotics in test tubes against Babesia duncani, a malaria-like parasite found on the West Coast of the U.S. that causes the disease babesiosis. Published in the journal Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, the laboratory study was funded in part by the Bay Area Lyme Foundation. Collaborating researchers were from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, California Center for Functional Medicine, and FOCUS Health Group, Naturopathic.

“This research is particularly important as babesiosis is a significant emerging health risk. Due to limited therapeutics and a rise in treatment resistance, current treatment options for this disease are inadequate and many patients rely on herbal therapies for which there is only anecdotal evidence of efficacy,” said co-author Sunjya K. Schweig, MD, Founder and Director, California Center for Functional Medicine and Scientific Advisory Board Member, Bay Area Lyme Foundation, who has also studied herbal treatments for Lyme disease.

“Increasingly, Americans with chronic diseases are pursuing complementary and alternative medicine to improve general health or quality of life. We hope this data offers inspiration to other researchers to further explore similar options for people living with persistent tick-borne diseases that do not respond to current treatments,” added Dr. Schweig.

Seven Herbal Medicines Are Capable of Killing Lyme Disease Bacteria, According to New Lab Study

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Media Contact:
Tara DiMilia, 908-947-0500, tara.dimilia@TMstrat.com

Seven Herbal Medicines Are Capable of Killing Lyme Disease Bacteria, According to New Lab Study

Research Supported by Bay Area Lyme Foundation Evaluates Anti-microbial Effects of 14 Natural Products Compared to Antibiotics Used to Treat Lyme Disease

Marin, CA, February 21, 2020—Bay Area Lyme Foundation, a leading sponsor of Lyme disease research in the U.S., today announced the publication of new data finding that seven herbal medicines are highly active in test tubes against B. burgdorferi, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, compared to the control antibiotics, doxycycline and cefuroxime. Published in the journal Frontiers in Medicine, the laboratory study was funded by the Bay Area Lyme Foundation and supported in part by The Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation. The study was a collaboration between researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and colleagues at the California Center for Functional Medicine and FOCUS Health Group, Naturopathic.

“Since traditional antibiotic approaches fail to resolve symptoms in up to 25% of patients treated for Lyme disease and many suffer disabling effects of the disease, there is a need for novel treatment proven effective against B. burgdorferi,” said the paper’s co-author Sunjya K. Schweig, MD, CEO and co-director, California Center for Functional Medicine and Scientific Advisory Board Member, Bay Area Lyme Foundation. “Because patients are currently turning to herbal remedies to fill the treatment gaps left by antibiotics, this research is a critical step in helping clinicians, as well as patients, understand which ones may offer the most potential benefit.”