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posted by martyb on Saturday September 26 2020, @03:51PM   Printer-friendly

MS treatment a step closer after drug shown to repair nerve coating:

A clinical trial of the cancer drug bexarotene showed that it repaired the protective myelin sheaths that MS destroys. The loss of myelin causes a range of neurological problems including balance, vision and muscle disorders, and ultimately, disability.

While bexarotene cannot be used as a treatment, because the side-effects are too serious, doctors behind the trial said the results showed "remyelination" was possible in humans, suggesting other drugs or drug combinations will halt MS.

[...] MS arises when the immune system mistakenly attacks the fatty myelin coating that wraps around nerves in the brain and spinal cord. Without the lipid-rich substance, signals travel more slowly along nerves, are disrupted, or fail to get through at all. About 100,000 people in the UK live with the condition.

Funded by the MS Society, bexarotene was assessed in a phase 2a trial that used brain scans to monitor changes to damaged neurons in patients with relapsing MS. This is an early stage of the condition that precedes secondary progressive disease, where neurons die off and cause permanent disability.

The drug had some serious side-effects, from thyroid disease to raised levels of fats in the blood, which can lead to dangerous inflammation of the pancreas. But brain scans revealed that neurons had regrown their myelin sheaths, a finding confirmed by tests that showed signals sent from the retina to the visual cortex at the back of the brain had quickened. "That can only be achieved through remyelination," said Coles.

Additional details: https://www.mssociety.org.uk/research/latest-research/latest-research-news-and-blogs/trial-shows-myelin-repair-in-humans-is-possible.


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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @03:59PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @03:59PM (#1057289)

    I thought at first it was for treating sufferers of Micro$oft products.

    • (Score: 3, Disagree) by looorg on Saturday September 26 2020, @04:14PM (1 child)

      by looorg (578) on Saturday September 26 2020, @04:14PM (#1057299)

      There is no cure for M$, it has spread to far and wide to purge.

      • (Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday September 26 2020, @08:16PM

        by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 26 2020, @08:16PM (#1057359)
        Nah. The practical alternatives are either prohibitively expensive or their shortcomings are too severe for mass-adoption..
        --
        🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @06:14PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @06:14PM (#1057331)

      Smith and Wesson have the cure.

      • (Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday September 26 2020, @06:48PM

        by looorg (578) on Saturday September 26 2020, @06:48PM (#1057340)

        Don't they offer more of a final solution.

  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday September 26 2020, @04:00PM (5 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday September 26 2020, @04:00PM (#1057292)

    doctors behind the trial said the results showed "remyelination" was possible in humans, suggesting other drugs or drug combinations will halt MS.

    Just as immortality is possible at the cellular level... it's just nothing we actually benefit from.

    The trick is in identification of what should be myelinized and isn't and then triggering this newly described mechanism, not very different from the trick of identifying cancerous cells and killing them, which we've been "hot on the trail of" for 70+ years.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @05:22PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @05:22PM (#1057320)

      Ooh unexpected snark. Sorry we have not cured cancer yet. Or built you a flying car. But we have more TV channels that ever before. Would you like more TV channels?

    • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @09:54PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @09:54PM (#1057389)

      Cancer research is perhaps a good analogy. Lost my 6-year-younger brother to MS (and complications) at age 40, about 20 years ago.

      One thing I suspected over the ~15 year course of his degenerative disease is that there is often a mental illness component to MS...and at times I wondered which came first. He was always a very "sensitive" kid, uncompromising, borderline genius and borderline stable personality at the same time.

      The more we learn about brains, the more it seems that mind-over-matter may be more than just a convenient explanation. It may be that brain mis-function or bad programming plays a role in some of these auto-immune diseases and in some literal sense he managed (unknowingly) to give himself MS?

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @09:54AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @09:54AM (#1057590)

        It may be that brain mis-function or bad programming plays a role in some of these auto-immune diseases and in some literal sense he managed (unknowingly) to give himself MS?

        No. You don't give yourself an autoimmune disease by "thinking". That's not how the immune system works. A component in autoimmune disease is genetic and the reason why others in your family have avoided it is just dumb luck. Like colorectal cancer, most are genes but just because you have genes, doesn't mean you get the cancer.

        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470155/ [nih.gov]

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @04:33PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @04:33PM (#1057661)

          Thanks for the reference to: Multiple Sclerosis: Perspectives in Treatment and Pathogenesis
          Zagon IS, McLaughlin PJ, editors. Brisbane (AU): Codon Publications; 2017 Nov 27.

          Since my brother died in early 2001, I haven't been following MS research. Just scanning the start of this book, it's obvious that a lot has been worked out in the last ~20 years--great news for anyone with this horrible disease.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @04:34PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @04:34PM (#1057662)

          everything is genetic to you quacks. how convenient since in a sense everything is genetic, but not due to some inborn defect like you fucks like to promote. Many times MS is bad diet causing the BBB to be weakened and bad stuff gets into the brain. Then, the immune system does it's goddamn job and tries to attack the stuff in the brain that is not supposed to be there. Then, since you hacks can't see the viruses and chemicals in the brain or purposely aren't looking, you blame the genes of the person, and the immune system, and poison the patient some more with your soft kill weapons systems. Even if the person's genes have mutated and caused the disease (not usually) it's probably caused by their mother's diet or exposure to toxins in her environment (arrogant whore doctors for one).

  • (Score: 2) by corey on Saturday September 26 2020, @11:45PM

    by corey (2202) on Saturday September 26 2020, @11:45PM (#1057427)
    So all those MS Read-a-thons I did as a kid (and thousands of others, every year) actually resulted in something.
  • (Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Sunday September 27 2020, @07:21AM (3 children)

    by fakefuck39 (6620) on Sunday September 27 2020, @07:21AM (#1057555)

    So senior year in highschool I started dating this Cuban girl. We were young, she was new to our group, and was introduced because our mulato pizza-faced friend Rusty was banging the black prize - a fat white-trash girl named Molly. She was quite hot and everyone went after her. I met her last, so as the honorable thing, I stepped back and showed no interest. Annoyed by everyone's attention, she asked out the only guy not giving her any, and we dated for a year. In that year, unknown to me, she cheated on me 6 times, even playing tonsil-hockey with another dude at my HS graduation when I wasn't looking.

    When I found out, I decided I want revenge, and the sex was good - she'd even give up the ass a couple of times a week. Things were going well, the cheating stopped, we moved in together with her paying the rent with the help of her grandparents. She told me she loved me, I gave her a free aluminum ring I got with the cologne she bought me for my birthday, as an engagement ring. She was in love.

    I started seeing two girls. In the open. It destroyed her, one day at a time - depression and crying, still holding on, getting worse, getting zits, gaining weight. A few months later I told her I knew about the cheating, I didn't love her, and the last few months were payback. We parted ways. One of my cokehead friends with a small trustfund asked her out at her lowest. They started dating, a condom broke, and she got pregnant. They both had the 1 in a million recessive gene for Canavan Disease.

    "Canavan disease is a rare inherited disorder that damages the ability of nerve cells (neurons) in the brain to send and receive messages. This disease is one of a group of genetic disorders called leukodystrophies. Leukodystrophies disrupt the growth or maintenance of the myelin sheath, which is the covering that protects nerves and promotes the efficient transmission of nerve impulses."

    What happens is as the nerve insulation degrades, the child's muscles stop working. Eventually can't eat - daily feeding tube, poop through a hole in the stomach, etc. At the end, usually by 10 years old, the innocent kid's lungs stop breathing, and it's gone. The outcome is always fatal, and the parents get to slowly watch their child die, over the course of many years, knowing the end outcome, having no hope, having every dollar in income completely drained.

    Maybe this new treatment could have saved her kid, alas it's come years too late. That's right Theresa. Guess you shouldn't have cheated on me, you piece of shit. This is what you get.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @04:39PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @04:39PM (#1057663)

      You shouldn't be so hard on her. Girls that age don't know what they want yet and are trying to find out. Dudes that age are usually emotionally retarded assholes in other ways. I know because i was one.

      • (Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Sunday September 27 2020, @06:00PM (1 child)

        by fakefuck39 (6620) on Sunday September 27 2020, @06:00PM (#1057708)

        eh, me being that age gave me the right to be hard on her. 18 is old enough to know wrong from right. not knowing what you want doesn't give you the right to play with people - it gives you the right, as at any age, to not ask someone to be exclusive and just continue seeing multiple people without committing. I myself was exclusive with only 3 girls in my life, but I've gone out with many.

        Of course no one deserves to have a kid die like that - especially the kid. Of course I don't care what happened senior year in high school - those were kid-level relationships. Of course I'm not hard on her now, and haven't even seen her in 20 years. That was just to make the story fun. My point was, this has potential to cure much more than MS. There are several incurable diseases this applies to, and is awesome news.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @09:13PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @09:13PM (#1057809)

          Lead damages the myelination of nerve cells too. Combine this with that stuff to flush the lead out of the body, and we could bring a whole generation of people back to some semblance of life, even if they aren't 100 percent due to actual nerve loss.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @09:47AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @09:47AM (#1057589)

    some real effects were seen. Good. Until now MS had no solution but a disaster death sentence you would only wish on your worse enemies.

    I remember the hype about the "liberation surgery" which turned out to be BS for MS.

    https://www.nationalmssociety.org/Research/Research-News-Progress/Research-News/CCSVI [nationalmssociety.org]

    At least some real hope here.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @01:55PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @01:55PM (#1057622)

    I was under the impression that re-myelization is known to be possible, and happens, with damaged myelin hulls taking "months to years" to recover. Maybe there is some difference with recovering on different sides of the blood/brain barrier?

    As I understood it: At the "better" part of the spectrum you catch some bug that the immune system deals with. But unfortunately some protein in your nervous system looks like the part of the bug that the immune system fought, the responding antibodies also happen to take out the myelin hulls. A light symptom would be like feeling warm feet, or having tingly fingers. More symptoms noted in the extremities, because of longer nerves being exposed. A bad symptom would be paralyzed parts of the body, the respiratory system being the worst. Once the antibodies go away, you - very slowly - start to recover, and if you're lucky, the recovery can be complete. That's AIDP (Acute Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy), with its extreme form called GBS (Guillan-Barre-Syndrome).

    If you're a bit less lucky, you somehow get stuck with the antibodies. These cause the nerve damage to progress. Treatments are neutralizing antibodies or plasma cleaning, which seem to have a good chance to work. If you're lucky enough to get competent first world treatment, recovery would then be similar to the above. This form is called CIDP (Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy).

    MS is if your immune system does not attack an external antigen, but turns against your own body. You're mostly out of luck, because the antigen does not disappear and your immune system cannot be kept from creating nerve-damaging antibodies. There seem to be novel treatments, especially from Novartis, in the pipeline, but I haven't looked deeply into that.

    In any case, it appeared to me so far that the problem with MS is not mostly the recovery of the myelin sheaths, but more the unstoppable autoimmune mechanism. The article mentions damage to spinal/brain nerves with MS, which generally seems not to happen with xIDP. This could make a difference.

    Anyway, I know these things because I was struck down with some weird and initially unbearable nerve damage in March after an infection. It looked hell of a lot like CoViD, but I was CoV2 antibody negative according to the hi-spec Roche assay in June. There's another post of me detailing that. Aside from rehab forest hikes, I figured out that myelin is synthesized from lecithine, so I added two lecithin+B-Vitamin (B:said to be good for nerves) pills to my daily menu, and also took a bit of granular lecithin when I had a cereal. I'm happy to report that, after six months, I have mostly recovered, except for some occasional burning back pain, or some weird sensations all around. I got my nerve conducting speed measured two weeks ago and the neurologist said the values look "virgin", implying I can't really have had what I had.

    The lecithin thing was recommended to me years ago by an ex who worked at a health food store, where I got the granular stuff. I had white sheet syndome when I had to design high-performance IPC-logic for a distributed simulation and couldn't get any decent code written for four weeks. Three days after I added the lecithin (and looked for further help in the book "Flow"), the code was laid down and performed outstandingly. (I did not care if that was just a placebo effect - but if it was not, it would indicate it works on the spine/brain side).

    So, for nerve (and nerve coating) support, you know what's on my menu. :)

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @04:42PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @04:42PM (#1057665)

    "doctors behind the trial said the results showed "remyelination" was possible in humans, suggesting other drugs or drug combinations will halt MS."

    you can already grow myelin sheathing with turkey tail mushrooms, but hey, how can these whores make money pushing poison?

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