Elevated aMMP-8 (active Matrix Metalloproteinase-8)

[Shadrach Loom]

This enzyme can be tested on site by dental hygienists who want to know how much collagen is breaking down in periodontal tissues. <10 ng/ml is a healthy range, anything significantly higher than 20ng/ml is concerning, and 80ng/ml is the threshold for assuming high-risk periodontal disease.

My local (and very accessible) dental surgery has just been taken over by a rapacious firm which likes to use all the kit and charge through the nose for it, so I had an aMMP-8 test for the first time today. I scored 207ng/ml, despite having gums in a reasonably good state with only mild inflammation.

The hygienist said that conditions that cause pain or inflammation can affect the results, and she still wants to continue with these tests on the assumption that my non-dental health conditions would consistently generate a steady baseline (her patients with diabetes, for instance, have a baseline of around 20ng/ml). I suspect that she’s wrong about this, but I’m moderately interested to see how the score correlates with ME/CFS symptom severity at the time of testing, so I’ll let her carry on.

Has anyone else ever had an aMMP-8 test with similar results?

And does anyone from the S4ME brains trust see anything interesting here from a biomarker perspective? Metalloproteinase and collagen both crop up occasionally on threads that go way above my head.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

And does anyone from the S4ME brains trust see anything interesting here from a biomarker perspective? Metalloproteinase and collagen both crop up occasionally on threads that go way above my head.

MMP-8 is good old neutrophil collagenase I think. It chews up your tissues when you have an infection and want to clear things away (like making an exit for an abscess). I cannot see any likely relevance to ME/CFS. It is likely to be all over our gums.

 

[Shadrach Loom]

MMP-8 is good old neutrophil collagenase I think. It chews up your tissues when you have an infection and want to clear things away (like making an exit for an abscess). I cannot see any likely relevance to ME/CFS. It is likely to be all over our gums.

Thanks. Good to have a mental picture of what collegenase is up to.

And yes, it is indeed all over our gums, but normally at levels that dentists can correlate to visible periodontal breakdown, which is why they’ve reassured me that my reading is nothing to worry about.

So I remain interested in whether other pwME get the same readings if their dentists have installed these testing kits, even if the relevance isn’t intuitable.