My July Blog Post brought forth the importance of nutrition in preventing cancer. Where as my August Blog Post will bring to the fore front some of the information we will need to help us better understand cancer period… in my Level Five Blog Post. My main goal: will try to bring you less links so it doesn’t appear to be a cancer link farm…. with greater content.
That’s the challenge that presents itself, however, for now in this blog I would like to change directions for a bit…. and take a different avenue. One that explains the importance of “Never Giving Up,” I have a friend that has diabetes and simply by walking unlike Forrest Gump did in the movie. He walks two miles a day…. he keeps his blood count in check and stays off insulin.
However, for a person with Multiple Sclerosis facing the challenges of neurological symptoms, including changes in any sensations, such as loss of sensitivity or tingling, pricking or numbness, muscle weakness or the very difficulty in moving with coordination and balance can be troubling in itself. Multiple Sclerosis Affects Everybody!!!!
This doesn’t even mention the problems…. one can encounter with their speech or even in swallowing, visual problems, cognitive impairment of varying degrees and emotional syptoms of depression or in mood swings. Thereby, this blog post and in any future ones, hopefully, the links that I put into them will helpout emmensely.
Let’s take a look at how MS occurs, thereby, being a result of some of the combinations of differenting genetics abnormalities, environmental and infectious factors, and quite possibly cardio vascular problems. The risk of acquiring MS, is also higher in relatives of a person with the disease than if your just general population, especially in the case of parent, sibling and children.
MS has an overall familial recurrence rate of 20% so this indicates that susceptibility is partly polygenically driven. Apart from familial studies, specific genes have been linked with MS; therefore, diiferences in the human leukocytes antigen (HLA) syatem – groupings of genes in chromosome 6 that serves as the Major Histo Compatibility complex (MHC) in humans increase the probability of suffering MS.
Thereby, the most consistent finding is the Association between MS and alleles of MHC defined as DR15 and DQ6… while other loci have shown a protective effect, such as HLA – C554 and HLA – DRB1. MS is more common in people whom live farther from the equator suggesting decrease vitamin D production.
While vitamin D intake has been the main biological mechanism used to explain the higher risk amongst those less exposed to the sun. Inflamation also is a hallmark of the disease and the part that sun exposure has on that. One must remember also the effect of low vitamin D plays on the formation of inflamation from past blogs to see the reasoning behind this theory.
The inflamatory process is caused by T-cells, a kind of lymphocyte which plays an important role in the body’s defenses. In MS patients, T-cells gain entry into the brain via disruptions in the blood – brain barrier… which could be a major role in the development of the disease. While further leaks form in the blood – brain barrier, which in turns causes a number of other damaging effects; such as swelling, activation of macrophages and other destructive patterns.
While gout occurs less frequently MS patients…. this could statistically explain lower levels of uric acid having a profound effect on MS, when you compare them to normal individuals. This leads to the theory that uric acid protects aginst MS, although it’s importance remains unknown.