I just came across a scientific article which relates intestinal permeability ('leaky gut') to the presence of antibodies to sperm. Many of us experience gut issues and there have been several posts which discussed the relationship between 'leaky gut' and autoimmune conditions.
My ability to read and understand the medical literature is quite limited - but maybe some of us can explain what this is about?
Hi BluesBrother,
Thanks for this interesting link. I will try to put it in more lay terms. If you or other sitll have some questions after, I will try to answer as best as possible.
This research has been done about infertility problems ( antigens attacking human spermatozoa, both in male and in female, a proven factor contributing to fertility problems ), but seems interesting for POIS anyway. Before talking about the study itself, I wouls like to make a general comment. This study tends to demonstrate indirectly that illnesses and health issues may share common causes, but can manifest in different way in different persons. What I mean by this is that the men in this fertility study having anti-spermatozoa antigens did not seems to have POIS ( or it was not obvious, at the least, no mention of it ), and on the opposite, POISers do not seems to necessarily have fertility problems ( I did not, for one - my wife got pregnant very promptly for each of our two children). even if an auto-immune reaction to some part of the semen is suspected in POIS. Human health is a complex issue.
I have found the full article at
http://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282%2805%2902815-3/fulltext ( I do not know why, but could only get the abstract using the link you gave).
The hypothesis in this research is that an antigenic similarity exists between an epitope in the guts and another in the human semen, and that would be the cause of the immune system attacking some part of the semen. An epitope ( see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epitope ) is the part of an antigen that really trigger a reaction by the immune system - this is like the "face features" or the "hair cut" that leads to recognize the antigen. You have to keep in mind that the study is about patient having ulcerative colitis, so they have an inflammatory bowel disease, which means they have a highly activated immune system response in their guts, and the integrity of their bowel mucosa is already impaired ( in lay terms, the immune system in their guts is already in a very messy state , so "errors" are more likely to occur ) So, if a molecule in some part of a component of the semen is similar to a known antigen epitope on a bacteria or a virus, this part of the semen can be confused for a bacterial or viral component, and be attacked by the immune system. It is the same as if you have a similar appearance to a known public enemy, and get arrested, even if you are a good working and lawful citizen. The situation is still more complicated in the guts, because as you may know, there is a natural flora of bacteria and virus that are present there, as the natural flora, and we need this flora, So these microorganisms have "legal vistas" , have a status of "legal alien" in our guts, and are not attacked by the immune system, because they are recognized as useful ofr us. But when a bowel inflammatory disease is active, those aliens are not as tolerated and can be attacked by the unstable immune system.
Here is the "punch" of the study:
"In this study we confirmed our working hypothesis that IBD results from an inappropriate and exaggerated mucosal immune response to normal constituents of the mucosal microflora, which are known to share common epitopes with human spermatozoa. Ulcerative colitis may play a role in the induction of ASA. This is probably the result of the inflammatory process, the increased intestinal permeability in IBD patients, and immunization against dietary antigens or intestinal flora antigens, which seem to share common antigen epitopes with spermatozoa." ( note: ASA = anti-sperm antigens)
So, people with ulcerative colitis have their immune system so activated in their guts that it attacks the resident, natural flora, and while doing so , they get to attack epitopes that are similar to some epitopes found in a part of human semen, leading to cross0antigenicity. As the process goes on and on, the inflammation increases, and the mucosa becomes more and more inflamed and leaky, and even more immune reactions are triggered with allergenic food crossing the mucosa That is the hypothesis of the search, and their results, while not proving this at 100%, tend to show that the high level of inflammation in the guts of these UC sufferers do tend to cause more auto-immune problems with semen.
What does that mean for POIS ? Here is what I think.
I already have mentioned that for me, the development of a healthy diet and a healthy lifestyle and a quality probiotics supplementation has been helping a lot with reducing my POIS symptoms ). User Kurtosis shared the a healthier diet has been highly beneficial in reducing his POIS, too. Colm recently have shared he had a modest but significant improvement after one year of a dietary approach. POIS is very complicated and causes may vary from one sufferer to the other, but a healthy digestive tract can only be beneficial for overall health, anyway. For those interested to give it a try, I summarize what changes I have done at
http://poiscenter.com/forums/index.php?topic=2090.0 , and that may help them get started.
There is no doubt ( for me, at the least) that there is an inflammatory part in POIS ( allergy-like symptoms, encephalitis-like symptoms, flu-ike symptoms, ...). It is therefore a good idea to reduce potential source of chronic, systemic inflammation, like what can happen in the guts. POIS may be like pouring oil on the fire of inflammation - if the fire is smaller, the oil will have a less dramatic effect. It may not be a complete cure for POIS to manage bowel inflammation, but I think it is better achieving an incremental improvement in our condition than waiting years for a miracle fix that may not come as soon as expected.
