Dr. Diane Mueller explains that CD57, a marker on immune cells, drops in chronic infections including Lyme disease, often falling below 100. But low CD57 isn't specific to Lyme: it can signal Epstein-Barr, COVID-19, or other persistent infections, so it shouldn't be used alone to diagnose or track Lyme disease.
Can CD57 accurately tell if somebody has Lyme disease or persistent Lyme disease? That is what we're talking about today. I'm Dr. Diane Mueller, your Lyme and mold literate doctor. And let's first talk about what CD57 is. And then afterwards, we're going to go into whether or not it is reliable for you to use as part of your understanding about recovery. So what CD57 is, is it is a marker that sits on immune cells, and it's on this particular type of immune cell called natural killer cell the most. Natural killer cells are huge for fighting off infections. They fight off intracellular infections, which are infections inside our cells. They fight viruses. They fight chronic bacterial infections. And what's really interesting about our white blood cell system in general is in general, during acute scenarios, our white blood cell and our immune cell system will be increased. We'll get more of the cells. But in chronic scenarios, what we tend to see is that our immune cells tend to go down. We make so many of our immune cells in our bone marrow and our body can only make up— we— it— the processes in our body to make immune cells, to make white blood cells can only go so fast. So in chronic infection scenario, our body is not able to keep up with the demand that is needed for these immune cells and the numbers wind up going down. So that is not just unique to natural killer cells. That is also true oftentimes in white blood cells. In fact, it's very common in Lyme disease to see white blood cell count below 5 when the lab range, depending upon the lab, goes down to about 3.5 or so. So the point of that is, is that what we see is that oftentimes for people with long Lyme, they are on the low end of normal for their white blood cells. And then when they start the healing process, we see that their white blood cells start to be able to catch up and we see those white blood cells return to a mid-normal or mid-high normal part of the range indicating a return of health of the immune function of the body. So the idea that natural or that CD57 cells CD57 cells are associated with Lyme disease really is a correlative thing and similar to the white blood cell thing. The CD57s are not specific to Lyme any more than our white blood cells are specific to Lyme. It is just common for people that CD57 and the associated natural killer cells will go down in number in chronic Lyme, just like we see our white blood blood cells go down. So a lot of people are using it, are using it in levels where people are using it to say, well, if it's less than 100 for the, the CD57, that can be a sign of an active or persistent infection, and that the lower it gets, the more suggestive of it, of a stronger infection is. So as it increase, it continues to go down and down and down below 100, that means oftentimes more and more and more, like there's chronic hidden infection. Now notice that I said chronic hidden infection because while this is oftentimes used as a way of determining Lyme and its eradication process, this is not specific to Lyme. This marker really is going to go down anytime we have a chronic thing going on, such as a chronic hidden infection. So it could be a chronic hidden infection from Lyme. It could be a chronic hidden infection from something like Epstein-Barr, from COVID from some other type of stealth pathogen, uh, you know, an infection. So while it can be an interesting marker to run, we need to not hang our hat on determining for sure that this means that Lyme is getting better or not getting better, because for many people, as you may know, for many people, and most people in fact, with Lyme disease, they don't just have Borrelia, they have multiple infections. So if the Borrelia, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, is being healed but the CD57 is not returning to normal, that could also be a sign that there's a different infection that has not been addressed yet that is also keeping that CD57 very low. So that's how to think about CD57. I look at it in many ways as just another marker of the overarching body returning to health and not necessarily indicative of just Lyme, because so many other things can impact it. So I hope this has been helpful. Coming up, we are going to talk about many different root causes of mold illness, of when you should consider mold illness, of what you should do as far as test mold or treat mold or Lyme first and what to do about these things and other hidden reasons for why people are not getting well. So I encourage you to subscribe so you do get that information. Make sure you do take my quiz at getwellquiz.com where you can take a free quiz to understand hidden root causes as well as lab tests that you may be missing that can help you on your recovery process. I'm Dr. Diane Mueller Mueller wishing you all the best in your recovery. We'll see you all real soon.
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