What Does It Mean When Antibodies Are Elevated?
What do these tests mean and how reliable is the testing to tell us if we are sick or healthy? This will be discussed as well as ASO titers, the antibodies measured in strep cases.
Typically when you get tested for infectious diseases, it’s an antibody testing. This is an indirect test, it does not measure the level of actual microbes. These tests are purported to measure the patient’s antibody response to some infection.
Watch the full video or continue reading below.
Serology
Serology is the study of serum and other body fluids. In practice, the term usually refers to the diagnostic identification of antibodies in the serum.
Conventionally understood, antibodies are proteins of the immune system that neutralize intruders, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites. There are five main types of antibodies: IgA, IgD, IgE, IgG, and IgM.
In general, the classic understanding is that IgM antibodies rise in the acute phase of disease, they come on first when we become “infected.”
Whereas IgG antibodies are regarded as the “protective” antibodies that can remain elevated for long periods. These are considered the ones that make us “immune” to specific infections.
The issue is that this model relies on massive presuppositions. We have been taught to believe in some disease antibodies offer “protection” (such as measles) but for others it means you have a deadly disease (such as HIV).
It’s been repeatedly demonstrated in serology research that instead of binding to the desired target, antibodies attach to similar or even completely unrelated targets. Labs do not validate this.
This is what Clifford Saper, previous editor-in-chief of the Journal of Comparative Neurology had to say about it:
“It is alarming, then, to discover that antibodies can be unreliable reagents. Insufficient specificity, sensitivity and lot-to-lot consistency have resulted in false findings and wasted efforts. Antibody unreliability has taken its toll across studies in cancer, metabolism, ageing, immunology and cell signaling, and in any field concerned with researching complex biomolecules. The waste, in terms of time and resources, is colossal. Losses from purchasing poorly characterized antibodies have been estimated at $800 million per year, not counting the impact of false conclusions, uninterpretable (or misinterpreted) experiments, wasted patient samples and fruitless research time.“ (1)
Contradictions in Serology:
- You may have IgM antibodies in the acute disease stage, but we are told they are meaningless if they are present longer than 30 days after symptoms began.
- If you have high levels of IgG it can either mean you have an active infection, an old infection, or a resolved infection.
- Antibodies normally persist in the blood for months or even years after the infection is gone; therefore, the test cannot be used to determine cure.
Here in this study and many others we see that high levels of antibodies was actually non specific:
“Overall a high level of HEV, EBV and CMV IgM cross reactivity was demonstrated, indicating that serology is unreliable in the diagnosis of acute viral hepatitis.” (2)
In other words IgM antibodies elevated non-specifically even in those without the so called acute viral infection.
Causes of Elevated Antibodies (3)

Furthermore according to the CDC:
“Some tests give results for two types of antibody, IgM and IgG. Positive IgM results should be disregarded if the patient has been ill for more than 30 days.” (4)
It’s known that these antibodies can stay elevated for years or indefinitely so there’s literally no way to use these tests in a meaningful way outside the evaluation of current clinical symptoms.
Your medical doctor will likely acknowledge that persistent antibody formation is not proof of persistent infection as they are also taught that it could mean nothing at all or it can remain elevated for other completely unrelated reasons.
What About ASO titers?
An ASO titer is an antibody test that is associated with strep. In functional medicine it’s also associated with PANDAs, a syndrome afflicting children. (5)
We are told that ASO (antistreptolysin O) is an antibody produced to “fight” the toxic enzyme of group A strep. Thus this antibody is measured to see if you are “infected” or have been recently.
The narrative is that this antibody test measures how much ASO is in your blood. In functional medicine the belief is that the higher the ASO titer and if it remains elevated for long periods, the bigger the issue for certain patients.
How accurate or useful is this antibody test though?
In this 2017 journal article they write:
“In such cases, a single set of ASO and ADB levels might be obtained, but should be interpreted with caution, since a positive value may reflect an infection that occurred in the remote past, unrelated to present symptoms, whereas negative titers are obtained in as many as 40% of [strep] infections. Given these uncertainties, it is often difficult to establish…” (6)
How about this paper that states:
“These data also unexpectedly revealed that, even in the culture-documented absence of [strep] [the culture was negative], ASO and ADB titers may remain “elevated” above [established] levels for extended periods of time.”
“Conversely, it is not uncommon to encounter individuals with quite elevated titers (often greater than published set values) that remain high for many months, even in the documented absence of Group A Strep [negative strep cultures].” (7)
What’s a More Likely Hypothesis?
Is there a more probable explanation for why these proteins, antibodies, rise in our blood?
Here’s a statement on antibodies from a researcher and virologist:
“The body’s reaction when cells break down is to form sealing substance, small proteins. Even if you get a blow on the muscle, in case of a bruise, or a blow on the kidney or the liver, there is an immediate increase in [antibody] titer. The body reacts by sealing the damaged cells and sealing naturally growing cells. This [antibody] binds to all sorts of things, you can manipulate this in the laboratory by changing the acidity, adding detergents that changing the mineral concentration. The blood of a pregnant woman is full of globulins to seal the placenta. The blood of a pregnant woman must be diluted 40 times to prevent her from being massively positive in tests, such as the HIV test.”
~ Dr. Stefan Lanka
Lanka’s explanation fits considering that multiple situations allow for elevations of antibodies and this is very well documented in the research. From tissue damage, injury, heart attacks to pregnancy.
For example this paper notes a rise in these proteins with severe damage to the gut:
“Elevated anti–Saccharomyces cerevisiae antibody (ASCA) immunoglobulin (IgG) and IgA levels were first described in the serum of Crohn disease patients and have increasingly been reported in other inflammatory diseases…” (8)
They are elevated in acute heart attacks:
“Elevated IgA and IgG levels in AMI (acute heart attack) might suggest use of ASCA (these antibodies) as a marker for atherosclerotic plaque instability. It might also provide a link between inflammatory processes and increased cardiovascular risk” (8)
They are also elevated in those who underwent invasive treatment:
“IgM and IgG auto-antibodies were significantly higher in patients as compared to controls. Further, patients who got an invasive treatment had significantly higher levels of AECA (auto-antibodies) as compared to patients with only medical treatment.” (9)
Conclusions
Antibody testing is not specific. It doesn’t have the capacity to tell us if we are sick, healthy or protected. Multiple types of antibodies increase in various inflammatory responses, tissue damage and injuries.
We see that there are many different contradictions in the medical model itself in regards to these proteins. On one hand they claim antibodies are protective on the other they say they mean you have a deadly disease.
Antibodies, if anything meaningful at all, appear to be simple proteins that are innate in our body to restore tissue, repair membranes and to aid in the inflammatory cascade during injury, toxicity, waste removal.