If anyone has MS or knows anyone with MS check this out. A new discovery about MS that was uncovered in Italy by a Dr Zamboni. He says that nearly 100% of people suffering from the disease have blocked arteries that come from the brain and thus force iron to remain in the brain which he believes causes the symtoms of M…S. It was a special on Canadian TV W5 Saturday. They are currently doing studies in Buffalo NY and Hamilton ON to see if veins are blocked in patients. I hope all the best for anyone with this illness. Here’s the link to the story…
Once the veins are opened it has reduced/eliminated the MS attacks.
I really, really doubt it. While it is true that MS victims tend to suffer from cerebral vasculopathies more frequently than others, and that they have an increased rate of iron deposition, establishing a causal relationship between the two seems like a stretch. How would stenotic/incompetent vasculature cause a change in iron solubility/uptake/deposition? I can’t really think of a logical explanation. If you ask me, its analogous to studies which find that owning a vacation home helps prevent heart disease. Sure there is a relationship between the two, but only because of confounding.
Also reading that article, I came upon a few very suspicious points.
Huh? Granted, there are some physiological instances where stuff like that can happen, but not in your brain there isn’t. At least, not without killing you real quick. I’ve read of instances where basilar or anterior cerebral flow had been reversed, and blood was supplied from the jugulars, but those people either suffered major brain damage or died within minutes. Besides, I’ve never heard of increased intracranial pressure for MS patients.
Furthermore, this proposed pathophysiology doesn’t agree with the typical progression of MS, which is to say that vasculopathy induced iron deposition would tend to follow a steady, progressive course, whereas MS patients usually worsen and then improve cyclically. All in all, that smells like autoimmune, with concomitant iron deposition, to me.
I still think at least it’s worth a try. I have no-one I know that has MS but just wondered if the MS associations have a conflict of interest in this research since they get funds from the public.
My sister-in-law has had MS for about 13 years. Not the good, President Bartlett kind; the bad chronic progressive kind that has deteriorated to the point where she is quadrapalegic.
There is no cure. Even if they somehow figure out what causes MS, and can stop it, they can’t reverse the damage done to her body.
I’m skeptical about this “discovery” since it doesn’t seem to explain the auto-immune attacks very well, but I hope they’re on to something.
Only through proper, controlled research. Autism researchers have been horrified at seeing similar things happen - they openly warn in their research papers that this is not a treatment to be put into practice and then watch as overzealous/unscrupulous doctors go wild by offering something as a “scientifically supported” treatment and cite the very articles that say “don’t use this as a treatment, it’s just an interesting correlation” as their proof. They know that many worried parents won’t go looking through the medical journals when there is this “proven” treatment staring them in the face.
These are interesting preliminary findings, but nowhere near what’s needed to conclude that iron deposition is a cause of MS and not a secondary phenomenon related to brain injury by inflammation.
It’s also tricky to evaluate the results of vascular surgery in patients that have venous abnormalities. MRIs can be difficult to interpret and have limited sensitivity and specificity for detecting brain lesions in MS, and symptoms don’t correlate that well with what the scans pick up. By its nature, MS is often a relapsing and remitting disease, so with small numbers of patients the perceived improvement could be deceptive.
I wonder if in a larger study there will be attempts made at a double-blinded protocol using sham surgery vs. actual vascular surgery, and utilizing physicians who will evaluate patients not knowing who got what treatment. If you really want to believe that a treatment will help, it’s not unheard of to demonstrate a remission of symptoms in various disorders, at least for a time.
I’ve heard of dummy injections and dummy pills, but never a fake surgery. That comes a lot closer to violating the Hippocratic Oath. I think it’s more likely you would see a study that compares vascular surgery and typical treatment.
