IgG - what is it good for?

IgG is used to measure the response to a vaccine (eg. PPV23) to assess for potential immunodeficiency in the case of recurrent infections.

IgG is used to determine viral reactivation (eg. EBV).

But IgG is not a determinant of “allergy”.

Is anyone able to explain what sort of immune reaction IgG indicates? Specifically I’m interested in how an antibody titre (tetanus) can increase without an infection, a reactivation or a vaccination.

 

I don´t think official medicine agrees with it.

This is what Dr Naviaux said last year in the Metabolomics Q&A :

Code:

Some doctors and scientists have not done a good job at educating patients and other scientists
about the difference between serological evidence of infection in the form of antibodies like IgM
and IgG, and physical evidence of viral replication like PCR amplification of viral RNA or DNA,
or bacterial DNA.

We have learned in our autism studies with Dr. Judy Van de Water
that supertiters of antibodies do not mean new or reactivated viral replication. Supertiters of
IgG antibodies mean that the balancing T-cell and NK cell mediated immune activity is
decreased.

This is a functional kind of immune deficiency that causes an unbalanced increase in
antibodies. This is like the famous figure-and-ground illusion that shows the silhouette of two
faces that also create the form of a vase. Both things happen. But which is cause and which is
effect? Increased IgG antibodies to CMV, EBV, HHV6, Coxsackie, etc. are not good evidence of
a reactivated viral infection. While Coxsackie is an RNA virus related to poliovirus, antibody
titers can increase to this virus too, even though it cannot establish a chronic or latent infection.
This can be proven in most cases by trying to measure viral DNA or RNA by PCR in the blood
or swollen lymph nodes. In most cases, supertiters of IgG are PCR-negative. There are exceptions
to this generalization.

I don´t really understand this technical explanation

Anyway I am concerned that some doctors in Spain use this high IgG argument to prescribe homeophatic products and moreover to say you don´t really have ME/CFS but a reactivated virus. (It was my personal experience). A few months later I was diagnosed with ME/CFS by two other different ME doctors

http://www.labolife.com/en

 

@Lidia, Are you asking what the IgG blood tests can measure or what IVIG can be used to treat? Also you mentioned allergy and my doctor measures that with IgE (separate from MCAS testing).

 

My understanding is that IgM represents a current active infection and that the IgG are the final "class-switched" antibody indicating immunity.

However in ME, with the immune dysregulation it could be that people with ME are actually making a lot of slightly dodgy (technical term) IgM which doesn't perform properly/doesn't switch to IgG.

Rice University in the US do a great Intro to Immunology free online course, possibly thro EdX ( not to be confused with TEDX) Simon recommended it several years ago.

 

I found this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3099256/

Don't know if it's helpful but thought it might be.

 

Thank you so much @Aroa, that information is EXACTLY what I'm looking for!! Do you have a reference/link where I can find the Metabolomics Q&A please?

Thanks @Gingergrrl, yes allergy is measured by IgE, but I don't know how reliable it is for us as my daughter has a cat allergy. While an increase in IgE has been part of all periods of illness, it could also be because of increased exposure to cats, or a new allergy, and not definitely or specifically related to illness (though I know it is).

 

ooooooh shiny.

Cool one on immune system pathology (looks like mostly autoimmunity) here: https://www.edx.org/course/fundamentals-immunology-death-friendly-ricex-bioc372-3x

[Edit:

Ah, here we go:

Fundamentals of Immunology I: https://www.class-central.com/mooc/1597/edx-fundamentals-of-immunology-part-1

Fundamentals of Immunology II: https://www.class-central.com/mooc/1839/edx-fundamentals-of-immunology-part-2

 

Thanks for the suggestion @MEMarge and thanks for locating those @JaimeS!

 

That was one of the allergy tests that I had done also.

 

Here you have the link. You can find it in Q11 :

https://www.omf.ngo/2016/09/09/upda...-fatigue-syndrome-q-a-with-robert-naviaux-md/

 

Thanks for the refs @JaimeS. I did most off the first intro course, but haven't made time for the second one, which concentrates more on T cells.

Maybe when PACE is "off the table/in the bin" we can concentrate more on science and less on demonstrating the lack of science in "psycho research".

Roll on Rituximab etc

 

I've tried to articulate this before, but I'm very aware of my own cultural context... here in the US, PACE has been derided so thoroughly. There are so many articles published in reputable locations that point out PACE's flaws that it would be a challenge for a US doctor to not at least be skeptical.

But the situation in the UK is just not the same.

And if the US doesn't keep printing articles re: CBT and GET are bunk, and the UK continues to churn out articles about how sitting in front of a computer screen to learn how to change your thoughts cures everything that ails you, they remain unchallenged, and the narrative rises to the top again. Like pond scum.

(You can see I feel pretty torn on this issue...)

Hmm, okay, we're getting off topic. Let's go back to IgG!

 

IgG is an antibody that binds to bacteria and viruses and forms a complex that activates cells to kill the organism, swallow it up and digest it. So its job is ridding you of microbes. IgM is similar but less precise and not able to recruit all the responses IgG does. It is a rough and ready version to get microbe killing started and also has an important function in telling cells to start making IgG.

IgE can bind to organisms in the same way but rather than activating killing cells it mostly activates mast cells that produce rapid inflammation. It has probably evolved mostly to get rid of parasitic worms which our cells cannot kill so the body walls off the parasite or discharges it in an inflamed sore. Why IgE leads to allergy is a bit of a mystery because allergy doe snot seem to be of any use to us.

Usually we have IgM antibodies to everything all the time, even if we have never met the at thing. When we meet the organism IgM B cells multiply and also teach other B cells to turn tinto IgG producing cells recognising the same organism. So we do not normally have much IgG to things we have never met but it increases over about three weeks and then we go on making it for years. The IgM cells are rather short lived so the IgM level drops back to before.

The business of an antibody titre increasing without infection is interesting. Using rituximab has taught us something about that. It has been known for decades that when the immune system is stimulated by a new microbe it can increase the production of IgG to everything it has seen before. This is often referred to as an anamnestic reaction although strictly speaking that term applies to allow memory responses. So if you have a flu jab your tetanus titre can actually go up - although not reliably or usefully. Also it seems that if your B cells are reduced by rituximab the ones left will multiply to take up the space and so the aantibodies they produce will go up. For some reason this often occurs for antibodies to pneumococci - they go up after rituximab.

Very high antibody titres to particular viruses do not mean anything very much. Each of us produces a different maximum response because of our tissue type genes but it does not mean much. Dr Niviaux's account of high titres is not something I have ever heard anyone else say and seems to me unlikely to be correct. It looks to be a red herring for ME because PWME do not have higher antibody titres to viruses than normal people. I do not know about autism.

 

I don't think the US has much to do with anti-PACE articles, @JaimeS. The editor of J Health Psych that produced all the papers is English. Alex Matthees and Carolyn Wilshire are in Australia, Tom Kindlon is in Ireland, Keith Geraghty is in England. The US journalists have been great but I have not seen much from the US academic world - except perhaps Lenny Jason's support.

The situation in the UK is actually pretty much as in the US. Most doctors think PWME are faking. The research communities think otherwise. The problem of education is the same. We have a strange group of people who have engineered themselves into a position of political power that relates to universal government-based provision of mental health care as much as anything, but they are rapidly losing credibility. That has been driven by patients all over the world and good science all over the world.

 

@Jonathan Edwards What might it mean for someone to consistently have elevated IgM and is this concerning?

 

I was thinking of both Tuller and Rehmeyer.

 

Total raised IgM occurs in known autoimmune diseases like RA and lupus. It can also be due to a monoclonal IgM protein with lymphoma but that is easily identified with electrophoresis. Otherwise a total raised IgM probably does not mean much as long as other immunoglobulins are reasonably normal. I persistently raised IgM level against a particular virus may indicate continued infection but it is not a very reliable indicator.

 

Any idea of a similar reaction happening to an overdose of medicine or other drugs?

 

Generally speaking drugs do not stimulate an immune response because they are not proteins. They can sometimes act as haptens (binding to a protein and making the protein look different with the drug attached) and this is presumably important in allergy. But I am not aware that this affects IgG production very often. If it does it probably has nothing much to do with the dose.

 

@Jonathan Edwards Could total IgM be raised in other autoimmune conditions besides RA and lupus?

Also, is electrophoresis a blood test or some other kind of test? Is it a marker of potential lymphoma or other illnesses, too?

I have had elevated total IgM for a few years (even before I started IVIG) and was wondering if I should have any additional tests (for MGUS)?