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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease) is a disorder characterized by the progressive loss of voluntary muscle contraction due to the destruction of nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord that are responsible from the stimulation of the voluntary muscles. |
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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease) is a disorder characterized by the progressive loss of voluntary muscle contraction due to the destruction of nerve cells in the brain and the [spinal cord]? that are responsible from the stimulation of the voluntary muscles. Lou Gehrig brought national and international attention to the disease in 1939 when he abruptly retired from baseball after being diagnosed with ALS. The most famous sufferer of Lou Gehrig's disease in modern times is physicist Stephen Hawking. A-myo-trophic comes from the Greek language. "A" means no or negative, "Myo" refers to muscle, and "Trophic" means nourishment; amyotrophic therefore means "No muscle nourishment," which describes the characteristic atrophication? of the sufferer's disused muscle tissue. "Lateral" identifies the areas in a person's spinal cord where portions of the nerve cells that are affected are located. As this area degenerates it leads to scarring or hardening ("sclerosis") in the region. |
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Some cases with familial forms of the disease were shown to have a mutation on their superoxide dismutase (SOD) 1 genes, which produces an enzyme that reduces the oxidative stress of the nerve cells. Similar findings led the researchers to assume that the nerve cell death was caused due an excess increase of free radicals in the cell. This hypothesis is one of many others developed to describe the etiology of ALS and is waiting to be reliably proven. Meanwhile, some experimental drugs are used to reduce the oxidative stress of the cells with very limited success. |
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Some cases with familial forms of the disease were shown to have a mutation on their superoxide dismutase (SOD) 1 genes, which produces an enzyme that reduces the oxidative stress of the nerve cells. Similar findings led the researchers to assume that the nerve cell death was caused due an excess increase of free radicals in the cell. This hypothesis is one of many others developed to describe the etiology of ALS and is waiting to be reliably proven. Meanwhile, some experimental drugs are used to reduce the oxidative stress of the cells with very limited success. |
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