Comments from Website author: Bovine type II collagen, the principle ingredient in Calorad, works to reduce arthritis as discussed below by de-sensitizing the patient to this allergic-type reaction. It isn't clear here whether or not the protein in "type II collagen" is also the one effective in MS, but the website author believes it to be a possibility.
Comments from Physicians at this article's end: None

Nippon Rinsho 52(11): 2873-2879 (1994)

Gut mucosal immunity and oral tolerance

Matsui M, Kuroda Y

Department of Internal Medicine, Saga Medical School.

The biological phenomenon that experimental animals become hyporesponsive to a particular protein antigen, when orally administered, is called oral tolerance. A breakdown of oral tolerance to dietary antigens may be related to food allergy. Conversely, the induction of oral tolerance by feeding autoantigens, such as myelin basic protein, protects animals from subsequent immunization by this antigen resulting in development of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, which is a disease model of the human demyelinating disease, multiple sclerosis (MS). The mechanism of oral tolerance could be an induction of suppressor cells, which release inhibitory cytokines including transforming growth factor beta, when triggered antigen-specifically and/or clonal anergy to fed antigen. Against this background, patients with MS and rheumatoid arthritis are on a clinical trial with bovine myelin and type II collagen feeding, respectively. Oral tolerance could be a part of the mainstream in future treatment strategies for human diseases with autoimmune etiologies.

MeSH Terms:

Administration, Oral; Animal, Antigens/administration & dosage*, Autoimmune Diseases/immunology; Digestive System/immunology*, English Abstract, Human Immune Tolerance*, Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Substances:

Antigens

PMID: 7996683, MUID: 95089168