WebWatch New Facts About MS

By Shirley Butler

In MS patients, inflammation of nerve cells in the brain and central nervous system causes the insulating myelin sheath to scar and erode. Nerve impulses are thus disrupted, causing symptoms such as tingling or loss of control over movement.

Scope Out a Cause

On MS patients, the immune system attacks nerve fibers, leaving them scarred and hardened and disrupting nerve signals. Scientists have long suspected this process is triggered by a virus, but they could never identify which one.

Now, researchers in Milwaukee may have done just that. At the Institute for Viral Pathogenesis, they examined blood and lymph nodes from MS patients and found evidence of a single, active virus. Then they examined brain tissue, and saw the same virus-in the exact areas where nerve fibers were being destroyed. "Where there is inflammation," says virologist Konnie Knox, "where there is bad stuff going on, where there is disease, That's where we see the virus." And that virus is called Human Herpes Virus-6 of HHV-6. HHV-6 is normally harmless. In fact most of us are infected with it during childhood. But in some people, some adults, the virus seems to reawaken and turn destructive. No one is certain why.

Readily Available Treatments

The good news is there are drugs to fight this virus, drugs that might actually reduce many symptoms of MS. Not only might these medications help patients who don't respond to existing treatments, they might have potential to actually stop the progression of MS.

"We now have a target," says Knox. "We have something specific that we can go after." And she and her colleagues have also developed a blood test to show when the virus turns active.

When Marie Brancato was diagnosed with MS last year, her blood test revealed plenty of active HHV-6. Now, since she's been taking an anti-viral drug twice a day, there's no sign of it. As for physical condition, she's "back to exercising, back to my normal routine."

For patients like Brancato, linking MS to a specific virus many mean stopping the debilitating progression of the disease. Although more studies will be needed to confirm Knox's results, it appears that the new research may bring scientists one step closer to a cure.

Multiple sclerosis usually strikes between the ages of 20 and 40, and occurs only rarely in children under the age of t10 or people over 60. Slightly more women than men come down with MS, and children and siblings of people with the illness are somewhat greater risk than people who have no family history are.

According to the Merck Manual, MS occurs more commonly in temperate climates (1 person in 2,000) than in the tropics (1 in 10,000). Some studies have linked the illness to the geographic area where the patient spent the first 15 years of life.

Long thought to be an auto-immune disease possibly caused by a virus, MS causes inflammation or erosion of the myelin sheath, the insulator for nerve cells in the brain and spinal column.

Patients typically report vague symptoms tingling and numbness or weakness on one side of the body or in a limb-that goes away a while or only happens after exertion or a hot bath. Other early symptoms include unsteadiness, blurred vision, slurred speech and urinary problems.

In some people, these symptoms go away after one episode and never come back. In others, they recur and cause progressive loss of function. In these more serious cases, other symptoms follow, such as mood changes, muscle spasms and skin ulcers. Some patients have lengthy periods of remission interspersed with bouts of illness over many decades.