Honestly, I do not know what is going on here, but it is an interesting question to ponder. Interestingly, a Mexican study did not find an association between eating cow or pig brains and MS risk.
Several things could be happening here to explain the differences between Mexicans and Brazilians, as well as what is happening in general:
- Choice of Animals: Since the Mexican study looked at cows and pigs, it is possible that the Brazilians were consuming the brains of different animals (the full article did not go into details of which brains were being eaten), like wild animals or sheep.
- Habits of Brain-Eating Brazilians: Again, I couldn’t locate an anthropological study or much information at all about the types of people who eat animal brains in Brazil. It could be that these people have other habits that “confound” the results of the study, meaning that the consumption of brains is just a funky thing that goes along with something else that actually does have an impact on MS, like lack of sun exposure or high stress or some chemical. (Smoking was found to increase risk 7.6 times, but it was “controlled for” in this study, so shouldn’t impact the brain issue too much).
- A Funky Virus? I don’t know about this one. If you are jumping to “Mad Cow Disease” (bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE) conclusions, that is a little far-fetched, as that is caused by a prion (a protein) and has different findings on an MRI. However, I guess it could be some type of virus or something else that sends the immune system out of whack. Very theoretically, if the molecular structure of the brains that were eaten closely resembled human brains, and the immune system reacted to them (and it crossed the gut and the blood-brain barrier, etc.), it could cause an autoimmune response – however, this is almost getting into science fiction territory for how remote the possibility is (in my opinion).
Weirdly enough, the study also showed that being single increased one’s risk almost five times. The one that has me most curious, however, is that having the series of standard vaccinations specified by the Brazilian government increased risk more than 16 times. I will be looking into that further…
Sources:
Silva KR, Alvarenga RM, Fernandez Y Fernandez O, Alvarenga H, Thuler LC. “Potential risk factors for multiple sclerosis in Rio de Janeiro: a case-control study.” Arq Neuropsiquiatr. 2009 Jun;67(2A):229-34.
Tarrats R, Ordońez G, Rios C, Sotelo J. Varicella, ephemeral breastfeeding and eczema as risk factors for multiple sclerosis in Mexicans. Acta Neurol Scand. 2002 Feb;105(2):88-94.
Why is it so “weird” that those who submit to vaccinations have such an increased risk? Would a study investigating that link not seem a little more credible from a scientific standpoint than studying people who eat brains?
It sounds like a bad study. When you get weird results in a study, you have to question the methods, the subject selection and the data collection. Also the non-specificity of the findings make it useful only to those who would like to design further studies. It is not particularly applicable to PWMS now. Interestingly, it was a Brazilian study that found that having parasites protects people from MS. Nevertheless, I think I will adopt a “brain free” diet from now on. No point in taking any risks.
Well, one obvious explanation could be incomplete digestion or “leaky gut” syndrome, which has often be implicated in MS (there was also a study presented at the Seattle neurologist congress showing strong correlation between cancida, which adds to leaky gut, and MS prevalense). This would lead to complete proteins infiltrating the intestinal lining (in a non-leaky gut proteins are split into amino acids before making it into the blood stream), where they’re recognized as invader antigens by the immune system. The more similar these antigens are to human CNS proteins like myelin or oligodendrocytes, the more likely the human immune system is going to eventually attack its own CNS. Obviously animal brains are the food that comes closest to resembling our CNS of any food…
PS: The link with vaccinations is intriguing. It would be close to impossible to do the same comparative study in the US or Canada, since nearly everybody has the standard vaccinations here. Might explain why MS prevalence is roughly 16 times higher than in countries that don’t vaccinate as much, like less industrialized nations. We may never know…
Of course sun also plays a role there since these countries often happen to be closer to the equator…
Where did you get this information?
I’m Brazilian. I never ate animal brain. I was married and I have MS.
Also, I have many friends in Brazil that never ate animal brains either and they have MS.
One more thing…
Habits of Brain-Eating Brazilians???
I never heard such a thing.
Maybe farmers will eat animal brain but it is NOT a Brazilian habit.
The idea behind leaky gut syndrome is that protein that resembles proteins in our body causes the immune system to turn towards the body if they leak undigested through the intestinal lining. It doesn’t mean you have to eat brains to get it, only that that increases the chance. Probably meat would also increase it. There’s evidence that milk increases it. It would be interesting to see if strict vegans get MS, since they mostly only eat proteins that look different than the proteins in the body.
That is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard believe me as far as I know I never ate an animal’s brain. Don’t know why I have been sick for so long, but I can assure you not because of animal brains.
I find this whole thing fascinating. I’ve always thought the theory of our immune system attacking the myelin to be a bit far-fetched. It fails to explain why the axons break in the first place, even without lesion formation.
Some researchers are now suggesting that lesion formation is actually caused by apoptosis. Normally this is a natural death of the cell body, but it can also be caused by toxins or viruses.
http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/news/Mar2004/FaultyImmuneSystemMayNotBeCauseofMS.html
So the idea that people are acquiring a virus through consumption of animal brains isn’t all that far out, to me.