Mom's Story, A Child Learns About MS

Mom's Story, A Child Learns About MS
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Tuesday, May 30, 2017

New MS Research



This month in Lancet Neurology, a Canadian research team reports there is a pre-clinical phase in MS. The study used health administration records from four Canadian provinces (British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Nova Scotia). Due to the nature of the Canadian health-care system, these provinces have computerized health-care records on >99% of
residents, including hospital discharges, physician billing, prescription on records, and dates of all medical visits – all records can be linked by a unique health-care number assigned to individuals. Using these records, medical histories for 14,428 MS cases and 72,059 controls were included for this study. They compared health-care utilization in the same five years
period prior MS diagnosis between cases and temporally matched controls.
Interestingly, five years before a MS diagnosis, the number of hospital admissions for people who eventually developed MS was 26% higher than controls, and this increased to 78% higher a year before MS diagnosis. A similar pa*ern was observed for physician billing (5 years before diagnosis:
24% higher in people with MS than controls; 1 year before diagnosis: 88%
higher in people with MS than controls). There was also a substantial increase in the number of prescribed drug classes in people with MS compared to controls (5 years before diagnosis: 23% higher; 1 year
before diagnosis: 49%  higher). These results clearly demonstrate a pre-clinical stage for MS where subtle symptoms exist before clinically definitive symptoms (also known as a prodromal stage). With further research, we can explore these subtle symptoms and hopefully diagnose MS earlier and initiate therapeutics earlier, slowing the rate of progression of MS.

From: When do MS symptoms start? By Farren Briggs PhD, ScM; The Accelerated Care Project for Multiple Sclerosis

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Interesting Results…

Gene That Boosts Resistance to Malaria linked to Susceptibility to MS and Lupus in Sardinia

Researchers from Italy found a strong association between the gene that instructs the molecule “BAFF” and susceptibility to MS and lupus in studies of nearly 6,000 people in Sardinia. The BAFF gene is crucial to activation of immune B cells and is also associated with resistance to malaria. Malaria was common in Sardinia until it was eradicated in 1950. The rates of MS and certain immune-mediated diseases are high in Sardinia. Further research is necessary to confirm whether this high rate is related to BAFF, and whether MS could be treated by a therapy that targets BAFF.

Sunday, May 7, 2017

Interesting Results...

Gene That Boosts Resistance to Malaria linked to Susceptibility to MS and Lupus in Sardinia


Researchers from Italy found a strong association between the gene that instructs the molecule “BAFF” and susceptibility to MS and lupus in studies of nearly 6,000 people in Sardinia. The BAFF gene is crucial to activation of immune B cells and is also associated with resistance to malaria. Malaria was common in Sardinia until it was eradicated in 1950. The rates of MS and certain immune-mediated diseases are high in Sardinia. Further research is necessary to confirm whether this high rate is related to BAFF, and whether MS could be treated by a therapy that targets BAFF.

Read more about this study from the Genetic Literacy Project

Read the scientific summary of the paper in The New England Journal of Medicine

Read more about efforts to end MS forever
 
 

Novel Protein Identified Inside Cells During MS Inflammation May Help Explain Nerve Damage


Researchers from the University of Alberta in Canada report that levels of Rab32 – a protein that directs traffic between cell organs – are increased in sites of active inflammation in brain tissue obtained from people with MS and in mouse models of MS-like disease. This increase was linked to the destruction of nerve cells. If the results are confirmed, this knowledge could explain part of the neurodegenerative process that leads to progression of disability in MS and could be a target for development of effective MS treatments.

Read more on ReliaWire
Read the open access paper in Journal of Neuroinflammation
Read more about Research to stop MS in its tracks