Lyme Disease infection strategies by the spirochete causing the disease are multiple and artful in that they not only necessarily defeat the defenses of the human target, but ward off the blood immune system offenses of the mammals the ticks feed on to acquire first-blood meals.
The wide range of complex bacterial (spirochete) proteins exuded into humans & to limit human immune system complement factors is genetically engineered from several bacterial genes (on contained plasmids) that must have taken eons of time to evolve.
Certainly ticks are somewhere in cousin-ship sphere to cockroaches, which hail back to time of dinosaurs. Survival from this time, by feeding on blood of animals, suggests these bacteria have been around way longer than first time they were discovered, (1970’s) in Old Lyme, CT.
In ancient times of Romans and Greeks, people lived about 40 years maximum. Lyme disease slowly manifests ill consequences over decades, causing massive host suffering, but not outright death.
That the Lyme bacteria smolders in humans suggests that humans are an extension of the broader animal blood reservoir perpetuating existence of this bacterial population. As world human blood quantities expand, so does the feast on which this bacteria dines.
An observation from reading this research is the fantastic biochemical detail scientists know about how this bacteria interacts with the human immune system. Yet doctors have precious few definitive biochemical tests & clues how to diagnose actual human infestation. Most curious!
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Shorter lives back then might have discounted severe end-stage suffering; as disease slowly percolates through body. I wonder if blood letting (leaches) might have reduced bacterial burdens.
The crafty complex evolutionary physiological tricks played by the Lyme bacteria and the common non-specific symptoms of Lyme suggest that this disorder is way more pervasive than the medical system seems to acknowledge. Has to be a better way to diagnose it.
@threadreaderapp unroll
The crafty complex evolutionary physiological tricks played by the Lyme bacteria and the common non-specific symptoms of Lyme suggest that this disorder is way more pervasive than the medical system seems to acknowledge. Has to be a better way to diagnose it.
@threaderapp unroll
