This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

Here is a link to an article in today's Ottawa Citizen newspaper. It refers to a study that has been ongoing for the past 13 years. It involves bone marrow transplants and so far they have cured all 36 patents treated. There has been one death.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Ottawa+doctors+behind+breakthrough+report/8180666/story.html

Bruce.

I remember one episode of w5 where a man died .

This procedure is being used on very aggressive MS which the vast majority of patients do not have. Since nobody knows what causes MS, it's difficult to figure out just what is happening in these patients and how the bone marrow transplant may is affecting the disease. Obviously more research is needed.

Harry

http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/four-years-a ... ul-1.12218

since when can they predict what's going to happen ?

btw you know who's in charge of this research , dr, wtf-head freeman .

They can't predict...period!

As for Freedman...he's the guy who publicly called Dr. Zamboni a "quack"! I lost all respect for Freedman when he said that. I know there were other docs who referred to this incident and said how disappointed they were in those remarks. It's considered very unprofessional in the medical field to openly criticize a peer in that manner.

and why can't the media see what's going on?

In some cases they do...like Bloomberg news does on occasion. But the drug companies spend a fortune on PR and marketing and can overcome the odd bad article about them.

This is an important, groundbreaking study that shows real promise for what HSCT can do for MS and stopping progression.

_________________
Kathy, 49 with PPMS,full time scooter.
Married to a wonderful man, mother to a darling 9 yr old boy

While this procedure may show a lot of promise for very aggressive MS, it is still too early to know its long term effects. And the vast majority of MS patients have a remitting/relapsing form of the disease which this procedure does not cover. Wouldn't it be ironic that if it did indeed stop any progression, patients would hope to have the aggressive type of MS so they could have the procedure and become disease free!!

Harry

Relapsing/remitting can be devastating, and the vast majority of RRMS go on to develop secondary progressive MS. None of it is a picnic and both those with RRMS and SPMS can be profoundly disabled.

I wish this research would hurry up, it seems to be taking forever to obtain results. The W5 episode on Freedman's study was year's ago - why aren't we further ahead by now in our understanding of whether this works or not???

Like all research they seem to want to follow people for at least ten years.

I have discussed this study with my neurologist. The primary reason that those with aggressive disease were in this study is because they were the ones willing to take the risks associated with chemo, etc. dr.Freedman is currently looking for funding for a trial without chemo involving PPMS patients and stem stem cells. I have been emailing his research assistant about it.

I am very interested in stem cells and would love to see more research and resources directed to MS specific therapies.

_________________
Kathy, 49 with PPMS,full time scooter.
Married to a wonderful man, mother to a darling 9 yr old boy

There is a link between Th17 cell development and the endocrine system as this article shows:
http://www.jbc.org/content/285/21/15668.full

I quote: ... demonstrates that RORα can induce the transcription of a FGF21 promoter-driven reporter. Inclusion of RORα resulted in an approximate 3-fold increase in FGF21 promoter-driven transcription. RORγ is structurally similar to RORα and displays an overlapping pattern of expression with RORα, and these two receptors cooperate to regulate diverse physiological functions including glucose metabolism and Th17 cell development. unquote

Now I don't exclude the possibility that -as the Ottawa study shows for people with aggressive MS-you can do something with bone marrow transplantation to get the Th17 cell development under control.
Just like you can do something with fecestransplantation to 'cure' MS and - I guess - get Th17 development under control.
Or through diet (Swank, Walsh) you may be able to get control over MS incl. I guess over Th17 cell development through rebalancing the endocrine system.. (see also general-discussion-f1/topic15188-375.html )

What I find interesting to note here is that -with this highly complicated immuno driven appproach- Freedman apparently is able to margianalise risk where for other approaches such as ccsvi he was able to overemphasise risk and make other bold and inappropriate statements.

Welcome to the established real world of MS research. This is how the "Freedmans" of this group often react when something like CCSVI surfaces and threatens their domain.

I can remember that within weeks of the CCSVI initial announcement, these people had conducted a "study" proving that CCSVI did not work and was a waste of time.

Harry