Bay Area Lyme Foundation today announced results of a study demonstrating that adult Western black-legged ticks (Ixodes pacificus) carrying Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, were found in beach areas at equal rates to the woodland habitats in parts of northwestern California. Further, researchers, who were testing ticks for up to 5 species of tick-borne bacteria, found that the collective infection rate of all species was as high as 31% in at least one area, which offers a different perspective from previous studies that tested for a single species of bacteria in a specific area or areas.
Image-CDC/ James Gathany
Conducted by researchers at Colorado State University, Northern Arizona State University and Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), and published in the June 2021 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology (AEM), the research points to the need for greater education for both the community at large and healthcare providers about the risks of tick-borne disease.
“The high rate of disease-carrying ticks in the coastal chaparral was really surprising to us. And when looking at all the tick-borne pathogens simultaneously, it makes you rethink the local disease risk,” said Lead Author Daniel Salkeld, PhD, Colorado State University. “Previously, we, along with other researchers, may have missed the big picture when we focused our attention on investigating the risk of one pathogen at a time. Now, we have a new imperative to look at the collective risk of all tick-borne pathogens in an area.”
Researchers sought to quantify the prevalence of five species of bacteria – Borrelia burgdorferi, Borrelia americana, Borrelia bissettiae, Borrelia miyamotoi and Anaplasma phagocytophilum — in Western black-legged ticks (I. pacificus ) across multiple habitats. Habitats included woodlands and grasslands as well as coastal chaparral, which is a habitat that has not previously been studied. Ticks may also carry viruses and parasites, however only bacteria were included in this study.
“Beaches and lizard habitats can no longer be considered havens from ticks. Based on this new data, we are now encouraging residents to take preventative measures in beach areas and encouraging healthcare providers to learn the symptoms of tick-borne infections beyond Lyme disease,” said Linda Giampa, executive director at Bay Area Lyme Foundation. “Prevention of tick-borne disease is critical and ecology studies like this highlight the need to be vigilant anytime we are in the outdoors.”
This was the first study to characterize bacteria carried by ticks in the chapparal in beach areas. Coastal chaparral is a natural habitat for fence lizards, which have previously been found to carry a blood protein that kills Borrelia bacteria, although studies over the past 20 years have offered differing results.
Authors note that more research is necessary to better understand which animals may be hosts for the ticks in beach areas. It is speculated that the hosts may be rabbits, voles and/or the white-footed mouse. The grey squirrel, which has been known to be the primary tick host in northwestern California, doesn’t live in coastal areas. Additionally, the prevalence and role of the fence lizard should be further explored.
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People across the country are suffering from debilitating illness due to tick infections. We have been for years and years, pleading for doctors to believe us and help us, but have been turned away, made a mockery of, and often deemed paranoid and psychotic, because there are no accurate very accurate tests and no effective treatments beyond a simple course of antibiotics, which often only hit one infection, leaving others like babesia and bartonella to thrive and cause further harm, including nerve damage, liver and heart problems, brain inflammation, etc.
My point is this.. I’m glad these studies are starting to reveal what we have been screaming for years, only to be silenced by the medical system. It’s a shame that so many who are suffering have to go through what we have. Not only with the illness, but losing jobs, spouses, friends, being denied medical help, disability, and just left to deal and rot on our own, while they are told it’s all in our imagination.
Lyme and co-infections are present everywhere, even in the south, where it is labeled rare. Probably because they aren’t studying ticks, they aren’t testing for infections due to that “rare” label, and patients are being treated inhumanly by arrogant doctors who follow the inaccurate and outdated CDC guidelines to the tee. I don’t wish it on anyone. Please check yourselves for ticks.
Thank you Brandon. I couldn’t have said it better (without swearing and cursing out the IDSA.)
Same-same…
I went nine years being shunned and shamed, mis-diagnosed, and accused of seeking out pain-killers -amongst other things. The tests I was given was just the one that is recommended and it kept coming back negative. So of course it’s all in my head. I know where and when I was bit and because the tick had plenty of time to stay on me (it was on the back of my neck), I knew it was Lyme’s after a year of worsening symptoms. It got so bad that I was ready to give up and go find street drugs just to cope. I mean I had already been labeled a crazy-addict so wtf right!?
It’s a longer story than what I have written here, but I finally found a woman who was willing to treat my symptoms and she listened to me. After a couple rounds of a two week anti-biotic and a lot of reiki, I made an almost full recovery (my joints and especially my knees were the worst affected and still ache, but it is 90% better). I will be forever grateful to the woman doctor who listened to me and believed me. She is still my doctor.
My story is so common, and I know that nothing much has changed. I have been disgusted with our medical establishment over a lot (like directly advertising pills to the consumer even though your eyes may bleed and you might shit fire and die), but not like with Lyme’s disease. It’s everywhere (like the ticks here in west Michigan) and people are suffering. But hey, as long as people are sick and we feed them GMO’s and toxic fast-food, and ignore diseases like Lyme’s and keep insurance prices jacked, then we can keep the few wealthy happy at the top of the food chain while the rest of us are worked into the ground while taking pharmaceuticals and eating tortured farm animals.