Thread: Multiple sclerosis, Muscular Dystrophy, updates

Hope for MS patients...

Study offers MS nerve repair clue
5 December 2010 - The study suggests a way of helping the brain repair damage

Scientists have identified a way of prompting nerve system repair in multiple sclerosis. Studies on rats by Cambridge and Edinburgh University researchers identified how to help stem cells in the brain regenerate myelin sheath, needed to protect nerve fibres. MS charities said the "exciting" Nature Neuroscience work offered hope of restoring physical functions. But they cautioned it would be some years before treatments were developed.

MS is caused by a defect in the body's immune system, which turns in on itself, and attacks the fatty myelin sheath. It is thought to affect around 100,000 people in the UK. Around 85% have the relapsing/remitting form of the condition, in which "flare-ups" which cause disability, are followed by a recovery of a level of the lost physical function. In this form of MS, there does appear to be some natural myelin repair. However, around 10% of people are diagnosed with a progressive form of MS, where the decline continues without any periods of remission. In addition, people with the relapsing/remitting form do often go on to develop what is called secondary progressive MS, which affects them in the same way.

'Missing link'

Scientists have been looking at how they might develop treatments for these two groups. In MS, loss of the myelin sheaths which act as insulating layers, leads to the nerve fibres in the brain becoming damaged. These fibres are important as they send messages to other parts of the body. This study identified a signalling pathway in the brain which can encourage the brain's own stem cells to regenerate the fibres. They also showed how this mechanism can be exploited to make the brain's own stem cells better able to regenerate new myelin.

More http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11913689

MS scam...

Concerns about controversial MS treatment
7 March 2011 - Serious concerns have been raised about a controversial vein-widening treatment being offered to people with multiple sclerosis.

An investigation by BBC Inside Out discovered that one doctor carrying out the procedure in Egypt is not licensed to practice medicine in that country. The BBC understands that in the UK, an NHS GP has been reported to the doctors' watchdog, the General Medical Council, for organising the treatment through his private company at a cost of nearly £8,000. The operation has been dubbed the 'Liberation Procedure' by those who believe it helps relieve the symptoms of MS, an incurable condition.

Unproven treatment

It involves inserting tiny balloons into the body via an incision in the groin. The balloons are fed up to certain veins in the upper body and neck, then inflated to stretch the vessel wider. Some patients also have small metal tubes - or stents - inserted to prop their veins open. The treatment is based on a new and unproven theory that MS is caused by vein blockages which impair the flow of blood from the brain.

This is a radical departure from the mainstream view that there is no known cause of the disease. It is thought that several thousand people with MS may now have been "liberated" at private clinics in countries like India, Poland and Bulgaria. Some have posted before-and-after internet videos showing their apparent improvements. But the MS Society says these results could be down to the placebo effect and the fact that multiple sclerosis symptoms can come and go over time.

Dr Doug Brown, head of biomedical research at the MS Society, says: "One of the complicating factors is the placebo effect where people feel better for going through a treatment process but not necessarily because of the treatment directly. "It's an unproven treatment and until this treatment goes through a clinical trial it is impossible to say if its works and if it is safe for people with MS."

Blocked veins theory queried

Mebbe the glandular fever is a pre-cursor to MS?...

Virus and low sunlight 'raises multiple sclerosis risk'
19 April 2011 - Low levels of sunlight exposure have been linked to MS

Low levels of sunlight coupled with glandular fever could increase the risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS), say researchers. There are many suspected risk factors for MS and the disease is known to be more common away from the equator. The study, in Neurology, suggested that low levels of sunlight could affect how the body responds to infection.

The MS Society said the study, based on hospital admissions data in England, added weight to existing evidence. MS affects about 100,000 people in the UK and is more common in the north of England than in the south.

There are also high levels of both vitamin D deficiency and MS in Scotland, where the MS Society is considering carrying out separate research on a possible link between the two. Around 10,500 people have MS in the country, the highest prevalence of the condition in the world. With MS the protective layer around nerves, known as the myelin sheath, becomes damaged. Messages from the brain to the rest of the body are disrupted, resulting in difficulty moving, muscle weakness and blurred vision.

Light plus virus

Check out my bud Jason Becker

A genius composer

A beautifull human being

He has ALS

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGFDWTC8B8g"]YouTube - Perpetual Burn: The Story of Jason Becker [Trailer][/ame]

Wonder if it'll work against multiple sclerosis?...

Researchers Override a Disease-Causing Gene Mutation
June 15, 2011 : Scientists report they have found a new way to change the genetic code within living cells, a discovery that could lead to effective treatments for inherited diseases caused by a common genetic mutation.

Researchers at the University of Rochester in New York studied a specific mutation in the human genetic code called a "premature stop codon" that is common to a number of diseases, including cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy. It is estimated that up to one-third of inherited disorders are caused by this defective piece of code. The genetic code is a set of instructions in a gene that tells a cell how to make specific proteins, chemicals that are key to an organism's normal development and function. The premature stop codon, which scientists liken to a red stop light, is a mutation that orders cells to stop reading essential genetic instructions part-way through protein synthesis, resulting in an incomplete or shortened protein and potentially serious health consequences.

John Karijolich is the study’s lead author. “So what will happen when you have a [shortened] protein, you end up losing whole sections of the protein and whole parts of the protein that are engaged in reactions. So it would be the lack of those domains of the protein that results in disease," he said. Researchers altered messenger RNA, or mRNA, the chemical which conveys the genetic instructions from DNA, so that the stop signal codon was changed, in effect, to a green light or “go” signal, producing normal, full-length protein strands. The scientists demonstrated the work in the test tube and in laboratory yeast.

Investigators created another type of RNA, called guide RNA, to target and fix stop-codons in regular RNA. Karijolich hopes that one day RNA therapy can be administered to people with diseases like muscular dystrophy. “It would have to be once the patient is diagnosed and it then would be like a form of treatment. It wouldn’t be a cure. It would have to be continual. If it was possible you would have to continually take this RNA supplement that would continue to direct the modification of this RNA stop-codon," he said. An article on RNA repair is published in the journal Nature.

Source

Researchers say a variant gene which reduces vitamin D levels could be directly linked to MS...

Rare gene links vitamin D and multiple sclerosis
8 December 2011 - A rare genetic variant which causes reduced levels of vitamin D appears to be directly linked to multiple sclerosis, says an Oxford University study.

UK and Canadian scientists identified the mutated gene in 35 parents of a child with MS and, in each case, the child inherited it. Researchers say this adds weight to suggestions of a link between vitamin D deficiency and MS. The study is in Annals of Neurology. Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord). Although the cause of MS is not yet conclusively known, both genetic and environmental factors and their interactions are known to be important.

Oxford University researchers, along with Canadian colleagues at the University of Ottawa, University of British Columbia and McGill University, set out to look for rare genetic changes that could explain strong clustering of MS cases in some families in an existing Canadian study. They sequenced all the gene-coding regions in the genomes of 43 individuals selected from families with four or more members with MS. The team compared the DNA changes they found against existing databases, and identified a change in the gene CYP27B1 as being important. When people inherit two copies of this gene they develop a genetic form of rickets - a disease caused by vitamin D deficiency. Just one copy of the mutated CYP27B1 gene affects a key enzyme which leads people with it to have lower levels of vitamin D.

Overwhelming odds

The researchers then looked for the rare gene variant in over 3,000 families of unaffected parents with a child with MS. They found 35 parents who carried one copy of this variant along with one normal copy. In every one of these 35 cases, the child with MS had inherited the mutated version of the gene. The likelihood of this gene's transmission being unconnected to the MS is billions to one against, say the researchers. Prof George Ebers, lead study author at Oxford University, says the odds are overwhelming. "All 35 children inheriting the variant is like flipping a coin 35 times and getting 35 heads, entailing odds of 32 billion to one against."

He added: "This type of finding has not been seen in any complex disease. The uniform transmission of a variant to offspring with MS is without precedent but there will have been interaction with other factors." Prof Ebers believes that this new evidence adds to previous observational studies which have suggested that sunshine levels around the globe - the body needs sunshine to generate vitamin D - are linked to MS. He maintained that there was now enough evidence to carry out large-scale studies of vitamin D supplements for preventing multiple sclerosis. "It would be important particularly in countries like Scotland and the rest of the UK where sunshine levels are low for large parts of the year. Scotland has the greatest incidence of multiple sclerosis of any country in the world."

More http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16086004

I have MS and I take 10,000 units of D every day. It does help, but it's not a cure. I still have to take all the rest of the stuff my doc gives me. On the other hand, all these things together allows me to live a RELATIVELY normal life, such as it is. I would have to say D gives me a 25 to 30 pct. boost in ability.

My mother had primary progressive MS.

In her desperation, she was often filled with hope by what amounts to quack medicine. She was particularly fascinated by a 60 Minutes report that removing amalgam fillings cures all sorts of ills.

I am extremely leery of any report about any possible cures or causes, as so often they turn out to not be true.

Mebbe it lessens twitches by calmin' down the nerves an' muscles...

Study: Marijuana may help with MS symptoms
May 14,`12 (UPI) -- Smoking marijuana may be an effective treatment for spasticity -- a common and disabling symptom of multiple sclerosis, U.S. researchers suggest.

Principal investigator Dr. Jody Corey-Bloom, professor of neurosciences and director of the Multiple Sclerosis Center at the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues randomly assigned 30 study participants to either the intervention group -- which smoked marijuana once daily for three days -- or the control group. After an 11-day interval, the participants crossed over to the other group.

"We found that smoked cannabis was superior to placebo in reducing symptoms and pain in patients with treatment-resistant spasticity, or excessive muscle contractions," Corey-Bloom said in a statement.

The researchers used a modified Ashford scale to grade the intensity of muscle tone by measuring such things as resistance in range of motion and rigidity. The researchers also looked at physical performance -- using a timed walk -- and cognitive function. Patients were also asked assess their feeling of "highness."

The study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found the marijuana was generally well tolerated, but it has mild effects on attention and concentration. The researchers noted that larger, long-term studies were needed to confirm their findings.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2012/...#ixzz1vIaTfVxb

See also:

Judge with cancer admits smoking pot
May 18,`12 (UPI) -- A New York judge suffering from terminal cancer says he has been using marijuana illegally before dinner and at bedtime.

In an op-ed published Thursday in The New York Times, state Supreme Court Justice Gustin Reichbach called the state law that outlaws medical marijuana "barbaric." "Inhaled marijuana is the only medicine that gives me some relief from nausea, stimulates my appetite, and makes it easier to fall asleep," he said.

Reichbach has been a judge for more than two decades, sitting on the Supreme Court, the trial-level court in New York, in the borough of Brooklyn. He continues to serve as a judge. A state Assembly committee released a bill Tuesday that would legalize marijuana for medical purposes in New York. While the measure seems likely to pass the lower house, the state Senate has a history of rejecting such bills or denying them a vote, the Times said. State Sen. Diane Savino, a Democrat from Staten Island, said Reichbach's public admission was "incredibly moving and brave," the New York Daily News reported.

A source told the News that Reichbach is likely to die before any state disciplinary process reached a conclusion. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and went into remission, only to have a recurrence of cancer a month ago. Reichbach said he gets his marijuana from friends.

Source

Oops. den again, mebbe not...

Cannabis 'does not slow multiple sclerosis' progress
29 May 2012 - The cannabis medication did not produce the "high" of the illegal street drug

Cannabis does not halt the progression of multiple sclerosis (MS), a medical trial has concluded. The research - the biggest study of its kind in the UK - was carried out by the Peninsula Medical School in Plymouth. It involved patients taking pills containing the main active chemical in cannabis - tetrahydrocannabinol or THC - for three years. The £8m trial found THC did help to ease MS symptoms, but there was no evidence it slowed its progression. Modern cannabis medications do not produce a "high" - the psychoactive ingredients are either missing or delivered in a much lower dose than in the illegal street drug.

Lead researcher, Professor John Zajicek, will present the preliminary results of the Cupid (Cannabinoid Use in Progressive Inflammatory brain Disease) trial to the Association of British Neurologists in Brighton later. Prof Zajicek said he was "disappointed" the overall effect was not better. "There's lots of evidence cannabis has a symptomatic effect - it makes people's pain, muscle stiffness and spasms better," he said. "But what we were doing in this trial was to see if we could slow down the course of the disease. "There are very, very few treatments for any neuro-degenerative disease, whether it's Alzheimer's, Parkinson's or progressive multiple sclerosis and we were very much hoping cannabinoid might slow down the progression of the disease as opposed to just ameliorating people's symptoms. "I'm very disappointed - not for me - but for people with MS and I think it's desperately important that we try to find treatments that slow their progression down."

The study - involving 500 MS patients from 27 centres around the UK - was funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and managed by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) on behalf of the MRC-NIHR partnership, the Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Multiple Sclerosis Trust. Prof Zajicek said the "holy grail" of neuroscience researchers was to try to find drugs that would actually slow the progression of neuro-degenerative diseases.

Further trials were necessary, he said, but with a cost of about £5m, they would need financial backing. "If we spent more money on these trials then we'd have answers and treatments for these degenerative diseases that we haven't got at the moment," he said. "Progression of MS is thought to be due to death of nerve cells, and researchers around the world are desperately searching for treatments that may be 'neuroprotective'. "Laboratory experiments have suggested that certain cannabis derivatives may be neuroprotective."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-18247649