Sphingolin-Bovine Myelin

Sphingolin is a supplement made from bovine (cow) spinal cord. It contains myelin sheath extract. We are currently unaware of any scientific studies that have been done involving this form of treatment. Sphingolin is relatively new in treating autism and therefore the number of people who have tried it is small. Yet, some parents are reporting improvements in speech, behavior, and sleep
http://www.bhare.org/treatments.html


What is it?


Myelin Basic Protein comes from the myelin sheath which coats the nerves of the spinal cord in New Zealand, organically raised cattle.

What does it do?


It has long been thought that consuming the gland or organ of some animal was therapeutically worthless, since it would just be digested as food. Apparently, this is not the case and glands or organs can have dramatic value in illness.

Glandulars do two things: First, they provide raw materials for the repair of an injured organ. As the gland is broken down, the body recognizes the parts and reassembles them, as it were, in the injured tissue.

Secondly, glandulars may be of great benefit in autoimmune disease. In an autoimmune disease, the injured tissue is released into the blood stream. There, the body's white blood cells target the debris for destruction by producing antibodies against it. In some cases, the WBC's don't stop at the debris and begin to attack the original organ. This is thought to result in diseases ranging from rheumatoid arthritis to systemic lupus erythematosus to multiple sclerosis to diabetes.

When a glandular is taken orally (and only orally, as it must pass through the digestive tract,) the body somehow produces molecules which stop the immune system attack on those cells. This is probably why urine therapy (see Basics of Health) is so effective, by the way. It turns out that there are receptors in the intestines that recognize MBP which binds to them. It is now thought that the lymphocytes which normally attack myelin attach to these receptors and then become inactivated.

Sphingolin works on the same principle. Although it is not a gland, per se, it is part of the nerve that is attacked in multiple sclerosis. Another theory is that consuming oral myelin induces tolerance by the immune system in the same way that injections of pollen ameliorate the body's response in hay fever.

Anecdotally, it has yielded positive results in autism, also.

A synthetic version of MBP called copolymer-1 has been marketed as a new drug called Copaxone®: New England Journal of Medicine 317:408-414 (August 12), 1987 "Is synthesized by random polymerization of L-Alanine, L-Glutamic acid, L-Lysine, and L-Tyrosine. It was one of a series of prepared to simulate Myelin Basic Protein, a natural component of the Myelin sheath." Note that Myelin by itself does not work. It must be Myelin Basic Protein. (see below in cautions.)



Discontinue if allergic to bovine material. Note that while a small scale study showed benefit from MBP, a large scale study using a product called Myloral© failed to show benefits. This is probably because it used myelin rather than Myelin Basic Protein. According to another study which tested this hypothesis, "Oral administration of high doses of Myelin, either before disease induction or during REAE, did not provide protection from disease or decrease in vitro T-Cell responses. In contrast, repeated oral administration of high doses of MBP suppressed established disease and MBP-specific T-Cell proliferation and Cytokine responses."