MS, baterium and Montel

[Guest guest]

Bacterium tied to multiple sclerosis

http://www.msnbc.com/news/308073.asp

By Segell

MSNBC

Sept. 17 — You’re an athlete, a weekend warrior with the competitive

instincts of Latrell Sprewell or Brett Favre, only half as talented

and almost twice as old. Which means you get banged up plenty. Often

your injuries produce numbness or tingling — in your forearms, for

instance — and the problem may linger for weeks. Then you start to

wonder: could you be suffering from something more serious than a

sports injury?

The challenge is to determine whether the bacterium is the cause of

MS in certain susceptible people or whether it simply exploits an

already diminished immune system in people who already have MS.

THAT QUESTION circled in the back of talk-show host Montel

’ head for years — in fact, every time he experienced

debilitating pain in his feet and legs. Recently, worst fears

were confirmed: He wasn’t suffering from aging-athlete syndrome, but

from multiple sclerosis.

MS is a chronic, often disabling disease of the central nervous

system. The disorder is characterized by destruction of myelin, a

substance that insulates nerve fibers of the brain and spinal cord and

speeds electrical signaling through the fibers.

Most people with MS are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and

40, but there the similarities among patients end. The progress,

severity and specific symptoms of MS vary widely. One patient may

experience occasional numbness over two decades, while another may

quickly become paralyzed and lose his vision. Some patients experience

MS in cycles of relapse and remission, while others progress to severe

debility and die from the disease.

Around the time was going public with the agony he has

suffered privately for so long, MS researchers had some promising news

to announce.

Pathologists at Vanderbilt School of Medicine in Nashville

reported in a recent ls of Neurology that a common bacterium may

be responsible for the disease.

ENTER CHLAMYDIA PNEUMONIAE

In a recent study, they found all the MS patients they analyzed

contained evidence of infection, either past or present, with the

bacterium Chlamydia pneumoniae, the cause of what’s commonly known as

“walking” pneumonia.

Although the cause of the disease has not been identified,

researchers classify MS as an autoimmune disorder — one in which the

body’s immune system attacks and destroys healthy body tissue, or, in

the case of MS, the myelin sheath. A number of studies have suggested

that an environmental agent or infectious agent, such as a virus, may

trigger the process that corrupts the immune system. But attempts to

isolate such an organism have failed.

Healthy Eve: Viruses may hold MS clues

The Vanderbilt pathologists, Dr. Stratton and Dr.

, suspected that C. pneumoniae may be the culprit.

Their interest was piqued by a report of abnormalities in the brain

scans of patients whose blood showed high levels of antibody to the

bacterium. The abnormalities were similar to those seen in MS

patients.

REMISSION AND RELAPSE CYCLES

The two pathologists then enlisted the help of Dr. Subramaniam

Sriram, a Vanderbilt neurologist who noted that the chlamydia bacteria

were responsible for other chronic diseases with cycles of remission

and relapse — a common course of MS. The researchers found a patient

with both an acute C. pneumoniae infection and rapidly progressing MS.

When the patient’s MS was dramatically arrested by antibiotics that

fight the bacterium, they began looking for C. pneumoniae in other

patients.

Therapy may counter severe MS attacks

They ended up finding evidence of the organism in the spinal

fluid of all 37 MS patients they examined. The bacterium itself was

evident in about two-thirds of the patients (compared to only 11

percent in a control group). The remaining one-third contained

evidence that the immune system had manufactured antibodies to C.

pneumoniae (compared to only a few control subjects).

The group’s findings are certainly as dramatic and promising as

any to emerge from MS research, but the researchers urge caution.

The challenge, they say, is to determine whether the bacterium

is the cause of MS in certain susceptible people or whether it simply

exploits an already diminished immune system and infects people who

already have MS. If it turns out MS is an infectious disease,

appropriate therapies to treat it will follow.

More importantly, there’s a good chance of developing a vaccine

that would eradicate it altogether.

Segell is the author of “Standup Guy: Masculinity That

Works,” published by Villard.

**[ With a little more research maybe the link to our Lyme spiros may

show up?? I need to go find out more about this bacterium. BF].**

Barb Fitzmaurice, R.N. - Michigan

BLFITZMA@...