Slide 29:
The interesting thing was that his blood work was not particularly
exciting, but it did give what has become one of the most important markers now on your
children. What are called natural killer cells were 4.2%. Now ironically in the world of
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, something like 38% to 40% of those adults have natural killer
cells below 6%.
For the record, natural killer cells protect us against presumably
cancerous cells, free radicals. Anything foreign to our body that doesn’t belong
there, natural killer cells are supposed to get rid of. As I found out at the NIDS Board
organization meeting, shark’s immune systems that we think of as so fantastic, are
all natural killer cells. Healthy adults have more natural killer cells. So, these adults
are considered abnormal, with natural killer cells below 6%. It is no question then to any
pediatric immunologist that when I can say 38% to 40% of your children have natural killer
cells below 6%, they’ll look at me and say they don’t know what’s causing
it but they will certainly acknowledge that it is a disease process. As it turns out, this
has actually become a very strong marker to me for the likelihood of a virus going on in
the background.
