Sep
23
Vitamin D deficiency link to multiple sclerosis in children – Times Online
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Compelling evidence that children with early symptoms of multiple sclerosis have low levels of vitamin D has emerged from a study by scientists in Canada.
The study of children suffering the first occurrence of the disease – often eye or sight problems – has found that those with insufficient amounts of the vitamin are far more likely to develop a full-blown case of MS than those who have normal levels.
The research in Canada follows evidence, revealed in The Times last week, that Scotland’s poor health record has close links to vitamin D deficiency, which is caused by lack of exposure to sunshine. Scotland – in particular Orkney and Shetland, which get only a quarter of all available sunlight – is the world’s hotspot for MS, closely followed by Canada.
The Canadian study raises the possibility that simply by taking a supplement every day from infancy it might be possible to prevent or slow the progression of the debilitating auto-immune disease, which at present has no definitive cause and is incurable.
Read the rest: Vitamin D deficiency link to multiple sclerosis in children – Times Online
Sep
23
FRIDAY, Sept. 19 HealthDay News — Resveratrol, the compound in red wine that previous research has linked to longevity, has shown promise in an animal model of multiple sclerosis.
Mice with the MS-like condition called Wallerian degeneration slow WldS showed an initial weight gain when given resveratrol, researchers at the University of Utah reported Thursday at the World Congress on Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis, in Montreal.
The weight gain occurred in the first two weeks of treatment. A microscopic study of nerve cell tissue at five weeks did not show any positive effect.
“They didn’t look at the tissue under the microscope in the first two weeks,” said Dr. John Richert, executive vice president for the research and clinical program of the Multiple Sclerosis Society. “Obviously, lots of things can make animals gain weight.”
But weight gain of any kind is an encouraging sign in MS treatment, Richert said. “In inflammatory animal models of MS, one of the tell-tale clinical signs of the disease is weight loss. Weight loss often goes hand in hand with loss of neurological function.”
The study “poses some questions,” Richert said. “Obviously, a lot more needs to be done to see if the weight gain shows a beneficial effect on the disease process. This is evidence that it should be studied further.”
read the rest: Red Wine Molecule Might Battle MS
Sep
9
A woman with MS is helped by giving 29 gifts in 29 days
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Two years ago, Cami Walker was, in her words, “coasting along through life” in a high-paying, fast-track job at a San Francisco advertising agency, and in a brand new marriage. Then, two weeks after returning home from her honeymoon, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. “You don’t expect, when you take the vows ‘in sickness and in health,’ that sickness is going to start two weeks later,” she says. “You kind of picture yourself old and gray and in rockers on the porch before that happens.”
Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease with no known cure that affects the brain and spinal cord. It isn’t fatal, but it can result in serious physical and cognitive disabilities, depending upon the form it takes. After being diagnosed, Walker soon no longer had the strength to continue working.
She and her husband, an actor, moved to Los Angeles so that he could find work to support both of them. The strain of her health problems and the stress of the move sent her into a period of deep despair. In March, she decided to perform a simple ritual suggested by one of her spiritual teachers, a South African medicine woman named Mbali Creazzo.
The idea was to take her mind off her disease by focusing on helping others and giving something away each day for 29 days in a row. She found that the ritual not only made her feel better by giving her something else to think about; she believes it also lessened her symptoms from the disease and even helped deepen her relationship with her husband.
Read the rest:Â A woman with MS is helped by giving 29 gifts in 29 days
Sep
1
Multiple sclerosis: the eloquent rage of a party girl cut down – Telegraph
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There’s an itch on Collette Waller’s face that she badly wants to scratch. She raises a pale, uncertain hand, wafting it about until it finds the right spot. Once, twice, it misses. She persists. Any of us sitting with her would help, but that’s not what she wants. She won’t even ask. Her power of movement is getting more limited by the day, but she’ll be damned if she’ll surrender the last vestiges of independence.
Not so long ago, she could still drink tea from a mug by herself – if she concentrated very hard. She wrote a poem about it: the ludicrous effort of co-ordinating brain and hands when your nerves have gone, the precision placing of the handle, the monkey lips pursed to reach the rim of the mug without spilling, the fury of knowing that “a poxy child’s beaker” with a lid would make things easier.
Collette is 36 and has a particularly aggressive form of multiple sclerosis. She was a tireless party girl, a brilliant county netball player, a traveller, someone who knitted her family together. Now she is sitting in a wheelchair while a carer brushes her eyelids mauve and applies mascara. On the table beside her is the thing she refused for so long: a mug of tea with a straw that someone has to lift every time she wants to drink. There is also her book of poems – angry, fast and full of strong language, shouting truths about disability that most people would rather not hear.
Read the rest: Multiple sclerosis: the eloquent rage of a party girl cut down – Telegraph