I just learned about a major improvement in the treatment of relapsing Multiple Sclerosis.
Multiple Sclerosis is caused by immune cells that for some reason attack the myelin coating of our nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. When the myelin is damaged nerve impulses that require communication between parts of our nervous system become disrupted. “A generation ago, after 15 years of relapsing MS 50 percent of people required a cane and had developed progressive MS leading to a wheel chair. It was thought that T lymphocytes were necessary and sufficient to cause the disease. All you needed were T cells.” Hauser. In the 1990s Steven Hauser, a UCSF neurologist and his team were studying the pathology of multiple sclerosis in a mouse model—and they detected antibodies “tightly bound” to proteins in damaged myelin. These were the same antibodies found in samples of spinal fluid from patients, and were widely used as biomarkers for MS although not considered to have a role in disease mechanisms. The team also discovered that...