National Geographic Article

[aidansmom]

My local Lyme support group passed this on to me.

 

Here is a link to the full article and excerpts from the beginning and the part that talks about lyme

 

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/11/iceman-autopsy/hall-text

 

Iceman Autopsy

 

By Stephen S. Hall

Photograph by Robert Clark

Shortly after 6 p.m. on a drizzling, dreary November day in 2010, two men dressed in green surgical scrubs opened the door of the Iceman's chamber in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy. They slid the frozen body onto a stainless steel gurney. One of the men was a young scientist named Marco Samadelli. Normally, it was his job to keep the famous Neolithic mummy frozen under the precise conditions that had preserved it for 5,300 years, following an attack that had left the Iceman dead, high on a nearby mountain. On this day, however, Samadelli had raised the temperature in the museum's tiny laboratory room to 18°C—64°F.

 

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The autopsy had taken about nine hours; analysis of the material gleaned will take years. The first revelations were disclosed in June, when Zink and his colleagues presented some of their initial findings at a scientific meeting. Thanks to the DNA in a tiny speck of pelvic bone culled during the autopsy, the Iceman has joined the company of renowned biologists James D. Watson and J. Craig Venter as one of a handful of humans whose genomes have been sequenced in exquisite detail.

 

The genetic results add both information and intrigue. From his genes, we now know that the Iceman had brown hair and brown eyes and that he was probably lactose intolerant and thus could not digest milk—somewhat ironic, given theories that he was a shepherd. Not surprisingly, he is more related to people living in southern Europe today than to those in North Africa or the Middle East, with close connections to geographically isolated modern populations in Sardinia, Sicily, and the Iberian Peninsula. The DNA analysis also revealed several genetic variants that placed the Iceman at high risk for hardening of the arteries. ("If he hadn't been shot," Zink remarked, "he probably would have died of a heart attack or stroke in ten years.") Perhaps most surprising, researchers found the genetic footprint of bacteria known as Borrelia burgdorferi in his DNA—making the Iceman the earliest known human infected by the bug that causes Lyme disease. .....................................................

[danddd]

FASCINATING!!! thanks so much for sharing that.

did anyone ever think that this nasty bug has been around that long?

maybe it was here long before us.

[MichaelTampa]

I found the article interest also. But, I had already heard that this bug was likely around much closer to the way beginning of earth, so I was much more surprised that they would have bothered to find this rather than that it was there.

[Bill]

So if Lyme has been around for thousands of years then it is possible that Lyme has been passed mother to child for thousands of years which would mean, genetically, we might all have a little Lyme bug in us. Just wondering how that impacts testing?

 

bill

[MichaelTampa]

Perhaps many of us do. Note the article talks about finding the bug in the genes, and it is what they say that having an infection (not just lyme) can change your genes.

 

Testing is often antibodies, but sometimes PCR (looking for the actual bug). So I don't think it would directly impact testing. But the body could decide to not fight the bugs as much with gene changes, and that could show up in testing in terms of not finding antibodies because the body is not making them. Many of population could be infected even though not having severe (or perhaps any) symptoms. Here I will note one study of about 800 people (not a really large group) that had about 40% positive on band 41. People keep trying to make up theories that it is really a reaction to something else, largely without evidence but just basically assuming if 40% have that reaction it can't be real because lyme disease is uncommon blah blah blah, but it could also largely be that 40% of people have at least a small amount of lyme bug in them (or at least did so recently enough that igg or igm antibodies show up in testing). This wouldn't mean all 40% are sick.

[Bill]

Perhaps many of us do. Note the article talks about finding the bug in the genes, and it is what they say that having an infection (not just lyme) can change your genes.

 

Testing is often antibodies, but sometimes PCR (looking for the actual bug). ...

 

PCR testing is what I was thinking about. I do not know enough about the science behind the test but wonder if one can essentially get false positives based on the garbage DNA picked up through the millennium.

 

bill

[MichaelTampa]

Perhaps many of us do. Note the article talks about finding the bug in the genes, and it is what they say that having an infection (not just lyme) can change your genes.

 

Testing is often antibodies, but sometimes PCR (looking for the actual bug). ...

 

PCR testing is what I was thinking about. I do not know enough about the science behind the test but wonder if one can essentially get false positives based on the garbage DNA picked up through the millennium.

 

bill

 

 

Oh, I see, interesting thought. Guess that depends on how specific those tests really are.