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Science Daily: MS News
ScienceDaily: Multiple Sclerosis News |
|
Posted: 23 Apr 2013 06:11 AM PDT
Magnetic
resonance imaging measurements of atrophy in an important area of the brain
are an accurate predictor of multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a new
study. According to the researchers, these atrophy measurements offer an
improvement over current methods for evaluating patients at risk for MS.
 |
'Sexy' MS Research
“Sexy” MS Research
Posted: 08
Apr 2013 08:16 AM PDT
UCLA Department of Neurology
I guess
my fascination with the immune system started when I was a kid with bad asthma.
I was always on steroids or some type of shot, and I didn’t understand why
other kids were well when I wasn’t.
Why was my immune system so over reactive
compared to other kids? Doctors were heroes who made me feel better (even with
all the shots), and that heroism was part of what drew me to medical school. I
also loved learning about the brain –
which is really “who we are.” This made the study of the immune system
attacking the brain a perfect area for my career.
Fast
forward to today, 22 years into a career studying multiple sclerosis. One area
I focus on is studying gender differences in MS. Women get MS three or four
times as often as men, and when men do get MS it’s usually more progressive.
Why? That’s the sexy part – sex differences I mean. To this end, we are
pursuing whether differences in sex chromosomes or normally circulating levels
of sex hormones impact disease susceptibility and disease progression.
Another
area is related to pregnancy. In the third trimester of pregnancy, women with
MS see up to a 70 percent reduction in relapse rates. So, my research teams and
I are currently testing pregnancy levels of the
hormone estriol administered in a daily pill (hormone or
placebo) to non-pregnant women with MS. In our two-year multi-center trial where
all participants have relapsing-remitting MS and use Copaxone, the primary
outcome measurement is frequency of relapses. In our new one-year trial, the
primary outcome measurement is cognitive improvement; this trial includes women
with relapsing remitting as well as secondary progressive MS who use any
FDA-approved disease-modifying treatment.
We’re
testing estriol primarily because it’s unique to pregnancy, it’s safe, and
because it helped improve lost cognitive function when administered to mice
with experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE: the “mouse form” of MS).
Mice with EAE have cognitive effects similar to those in MS – demonstrated by
their behavior and in lost nerve endings (called synapses) – and in mice with
the MS model of disease, estriol treatment improves that behavior and rebuilds
those nerve endings. Amazing!
I hope
you’re as excited as I am at how close this means we are to finding a treatment
that is neuro-protective (serving to protect neurons/nerves from injury or
degeneration) and could therefore have disease-halting capabilities, and maybe
even some improvement effects. How novel that a naturally occurring, safe
pregnancy hormone could prove to protect neurons from further damage,
effectively stopping MS in its tracks! We’ll share results in 2014 and 2015.
Today,
thousands of people are gathered at our nation’s capital for the Rally for
Medical Research – to raise awareness of the critical need to make funding for
the National Institutes of Health (NIH) a priority. You don’t have to be there
in person to show your support! My research would not
be possible without funding from the NIH and the National MS Society. While the
pharmaceutical industry is extremely important to bring new therapies to
market, it’s hard for them or other investors to support research into products
such as naturally occurring hormones or generic solutions because they won’t be
as profitable. Academics like me are out there doing novel research toward new
treatments not only to slow MS, but to stop and reverse it, through the pathway
of NIH, Society and other generous donor funding and partnership. You can
support this pathway, not just through donationsto the
Society, but through activism. Ask your member of Congress to
preserve funding for the NIH – it’s one email with a
potentially HUGE response.
If I
had to give one piece of advice to people with MS, it would be: please keep
faith that the treatments are coming – they’re getting better all the time!
There are thousands of people like me who go to work every day to bring you
better and more treatment options; comment below if you want to hear more about
our sexy MS research.
The March 2013 Edition of
Making Sense Newsletter
is now available.
Click here to read it.
You can also access previous editions of the Newsletter.
Select March 2012 or June 2012
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