User:Worley.a/Multiple Sclerosis Sandbox

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Multiple sclerosis[change | change source]

A healthy neuron with myelin sheath around the long, thin axon.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a serious health condition that gets worse over time. In this disease, the body’s natural guard against illness (the immune system) damages fatty coverings called myelin sheaths around the axons of cells called neurons in the central nervous system.[1] The disease makes people’s bodies, eyesight, speech, and minds work poorly.[2] People with MS do not normally live as long as healthy people.[1]

In healthy people, myelin sheaths help neurons work.[3] Electric signals in neurons move quickly through long, narrow axons like electricity in a wire.[3] The myelin is like the insulator around the wire that keeps the signal strong by keeping it from moving out of the wire before the end.[3] A person with MS has myelin that is too thin or completely gone.[2] Without the protective covering, the signals between neurons do not travel well.[2] Because of this, the mind and body cannot work like they normally do.[2]

Possible causes[change | change source]

Scientists and doctors do not know for certain the cause of MS, but they think some things put some people at a higher risk for MS[2] :

Research about the causes of MS is still incomplete. Some scientists think that one unknown pathogen (a small thing that causes illness) may cause MS in people who already have a high risk of getting the disease.[8][9] Some viruses can cause myelin damage, and there are some viruses that have been shown to make people more likely to get MS.[1][8][10] Even though scientists and doctors have many ideas about things that could cause MS, no one has found a cause that explains every case of the disease.

Symptoms[change | change source]

Four graphs showing how the severity of MS symptoms can increase and decrease in different ways over time.

A few forms of MS exist, which can create difficulty in deciding how to manage the illness.[11] Sometimes, after the body damages myelin, it can repair it a little. When this happens, symptoms (the problems caused by the disease) go away for a short time in a period called remission.[12] When the body attacks the myelin again, the symptoms return in a period called relapse.[12] The type of MS that has remissions and relapses is called Remitting-Relapsing MS.[11] In less common cases, the body continues attacking myelin and the symptoms get worse and worse without stop, a form called Primary Progressive MS.[11] Sometimes a combination of the two types can happen.[11]

People with MS have many problems. Their muscles are weak, they shake without control, they have troubles moving their bodies, and they have trouble balancing. People with MS often feel a great amount of pain and get tired easily. Their speech and sight sometimes become very poor. Thinking and solving problems is more difficult for people with MS than for healthy people.[1]

Inside the body, MS causes damage that cannot be seen or measured without special medical equipment. The immune system attacks either the fatty parts of the myelin or the protein parts of the myelin.[2][13] The body may also attack the cells that produce the myelin sheath, called glial cells.[2] When myelin is damaged or missing, large areas of axons affected by the damage are visible as scars or lesions in the central nervous system tissue that build up with repeated repair attempts by the body over time.[2] Lesions appear in different areas of the central nervous system depending on what form of MS a person has.[14]

Inflammation is an important part of MS symptoms. Inflammation happens in the body whenever an injury or illness is detected. Inflammation is the first part of an immune system response. In MS patients, inflammation from the immune system’s activity against myelin causes swelling and other harmful effects in the nervous system.[2] Inflammation can happen in response to stress, which is why stress may put people at higher risk of developing MS and may trigger attacks.[5][15]

Who gets MS?[change | change source]

The people who get MS are usually between 20 and 40 years old, although it can happen to older or, very rarely, younger people too.[1] MS is significantly more common in areas of the world that are far away from the equator.[1][16] Areas far from the equator get less sunlight than areas near the equator, and the human body requires sunlight to make vitamin D for itself. This observation supports the idea that MS is caused partly by too little vitamin D. People who move from one part of the world to another when they are children are more likely to develop MS than people who do not move long distances until later in life or who never move long distances.[1][5] This observation supports the idea that MS is caused by infection illness early in life, because people who move from one natural environment to another can get new illnesses that their immune systems cannot yet fight.

Diagnosis[change | change source]

To diagnose MS, or to tell if a person has it, a doctor will determine what kind of symptoms are present and how often they occur. The most common guidelines used for this are called the McDonald criteria, which define the symptoms of MS and how often they must occur in order to make a diagnosis.[1] A doctor can also order tests to be done by a laboratory, which can determine how active the immune system is in the patient.[17][18] A special machine called an MRI can photograph the inside of the central nervous system to show if the person has lesions from damaged myelin.[17][19] Certain types of neurons can be checked to see how responsive they are. Neurons with damaged myelin around their axons will respond more slowly than normal neurons.[20]

Treatment[change | change source]

Once a person is diagnosed with MS, a doctor can help ease the symptoms. Scientists have not yet found a way to cure MS, or take it away entirely. The form of MS that comes and goes regularly can be treated more easily than other forms.[21] Some treatments are used only during attacks to make the attacks easier on the patient or to help recovery after the attacks are over.[1][22] Other treatments are used all the time to help make attacks happen less often. These kinds of treatments are usually injections or infusions directly into veins, but newer treatments can be taken daily by mouth instead.[23][24][25][26][27] Some people seek other treatments outside of usual medicine, but these have not been shown in scientific studies to be effective.[28]

References[change | change source]

  1. 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 Compston, A (2008 Oct 25). "Multiple sclerosis". Lancet. 372 (9648): 1502–17. PMID 18970977. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Compston, A (2002 Apr 6). "Multiple sclerosis". Lancet. 359 (9313): 1221–31. PMID 11955556. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 al.], Neil R. Carlson ... [et (2010). Psychology : the science of behavior (7th ed. ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. ISBN 978-0-205-54786-9. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
  4. Dyment, DA (2004 Feb). "Genetics of multiple sclerosis". Lancet neurology. 3 (2): 104–10. PMID 14747002. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Marrie, RA (2004 Dec). "Environmental risk factors in multiple sclerosis aetiology". Lancet neurology. 3 (12): 709–18. PMID 15556803. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. 6.0 6.1 Ascherio, A (2007 Jun). "Environmental risk factors for multiple sclerosis. Part II: Noninfectious factors". Annals of neurology. 61 (6): 504–13. PMID 17492755. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  7. Ascherio, A (2010 Jun). "Vitamin D and multiple sclerosis". Lancet neurology. 9 (6): 599–612. PMID 20494325. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  8. 8.0 8.1 Ascherio, A (2007 Apr). "Environmental risk factors for multiple sclerosis. Part I: the role of infection". Annals of neurology. 61 (4): 288–99. PMID 17444504. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  9. Kurtzke, JF (1993 Oct). "Epidemiologic evidence for multiple sclerosis as an infection". Clinical microbiology reviews. 6 (4): 382–427. PMID 8269393. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. Gilden, DH (2005 Mar). "Infectious causes of multiple sclerosis". Lancet neurology. 4 (3): 195–202. PMID 15721830. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Lublin, FD (1996 Apr). "Defining the clinical course of multiple sclerosis: results of an international survey. National Multiple Sclerosis Society (USA) Advisory Committee on Clinical Trials of New Agents in Multiple Sclerosis". Neurology. 46 (4): 907–11. PMID 8780061. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  12. 12.0 12.1 Bramow, S. (20 September 2010). "Demyelination versus remyelination in progressive multiple sclerosis". Brain. 133 (10): 2983–2998. doi:10.1093/brain/awq250. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  13. Ho, PP (2012). "Identification of naturally occurring fatty acids of the myelin sheath that resolve neuroinflammation". Science Translational Medicine. 4 (137): 137–73. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  14. Pittock, SJ (2007 Mar). "The pathology of MS: new insights and potential clinical applications". The neurologist. 13 (2): 45–56. PMID 17351524. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  15. Heesen, C (2007 Mar). "Stress regulation in multiple sclerosis: current issues and concepts". Multiple sclerosis (Houndmills, Basingstoke, England). 13 (2): 143–8. PMID 17439878. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  16. Alonso, A (2008 Jul 8). "Temporal trends in the incidence of multiple sclerosis: a systematic review". Neurology. 71 (2): 129–35. PMID 18606967. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  17. 17.0 17.1 McDonald, WI (2001 Jul). "Recommended diagnostic criteria for multiple sclerosis: guidelines from the International Panel on the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis". Annals of neurology. 50 (1): 121–7. PMID 11456302. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  18. Link, H (2006 Nov). "Oligoclonal bands in multiple sclerosis cerebrospinal fluid: an update on methodology and clinical usefulness". Journal of neuroimmunology. 180 (1–2): 17–28. PMID 16945427. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  19. Rashid, W (2008 Feb). "Recent advances in neuroimaging of multiple sclerosis". Seminars in neurology. 28 (1): 46–55. PMID 18256986. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  20. Gronseth, GS (2000 May 9). "Practice parameter: the usefulness of evoked potentials in identifying clinically silent lesions in patients with suspected multiple sclerosis (an evidence-based review): Report of the Quality Standards Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology". Neurology. 54 (9): 1720–5. PMID 10802774. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  21. Skrzipek, S. (24 October 2011). "Differential effects of interferon-ss1b on cytokine patterns of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells derived from RRMS and PPMS patients". Multiple Sclerosis Journal. 18 (5): 674–678. doi:10.1177/1352458511427317. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  22. Burton, JM (2012 Dec 12). "Oral versus intravenous steroids for treatment of relapses in multiple sclerosis". Cochrane database of systematic reviews (Online). 12: CD006921. PMID 23235634. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  23. "Natalizumab Injection". US National Library of Medicine (Medline). 15. Retrieved 31 March 2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  24. Marriott, JJ (2010 May 4). "Evidence Report: The efficacy and safety of mitoxantrone (Novantrone) in the treatment of multiple sclerosis: Report of the Therapeutics and Technology Assessment Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology". Neurology. 74 (18): 1463–70. PMID 20439849. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  25. Kappos, L (2011 Aug). "Natalizumab treatment for multiple sclerosis: updated recommendations for patient selection and monitoring". Lancet neurology. 10 (8): 745–58. PMID 21777829. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  26. "FDA approves new multiple sclerosis treatment (Press release)". US FDA. 12. Retrieved 31 March 2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  27. "Gylenya medication guide" (PDF). Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation. 2012. p. 2. Retrieved 31 March 2013. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  28. Olsen, SA (2009). "A review of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) by people with multiple sclerosis". Occupational therapy international. 16 (1): 57–70. PMID 19222053.