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http://machineslikeus.com/news/alzheime ... ar-disease

--Frank

Penn researchers analyzed 5715 cases from the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center (NACC) database, which have been collected from 35 past and present NIA-funded Alzheimer's centers across the US since NACC was started in 1999. This is the first study to compare the presence of cerebrovascular disease across the whole spectrum of neurogenerative diseases.

Can a similar study be done on "MS"?

Quote:
In addition, drugs tested for Alzheimer's disease and other related dementias should consider the impact of the frequent concident presence of cerebrovascular disease on the treatment response of new therapies for Alzheimer's, as most current trials exclude patients with vascular risk factors or cardiovascular disease. Given the prevalence of vascular problems, the researchers note that this large subset of dementia patients should be included in clinical trials to accurately represent the true population dealing with these neurodegenerative diseases, or, at least considered when predicting the clinical impact on patients in a real world population.

Another example of studies that aren't done correctly. If they included patients with vascular risk factors, would the trials show the current drugs to be less effective?

The list of available "DMD"s on this website keeps getting longer. The prices keep getting higher. I might think there must be collusion among these manufacturers. The price of Tecfidera, is it really $57,000? I would like to see a timeline of so-called "DMD"s with time on the x-axis and end-user cost on the y-axis, both when the drugs were first approved, and now. If pwMS, or control subjects, who have vascular problems were excluded, then those efficacy trials have only tested the drugs on people already free of them.

That is simply because BFP (Big F-ing Pharma) doesn't want to accurately represent the general public, who have way too many heart attacks that might lower stock prices. This artificial exclusion of subjects with known vascular disease is another example, like "SP" and "PP", of making poorly performing drugs look better by excluding what may be a major subset of patients, leaving out, by intention or coincidence, a condition that may be a major risk factor for the disease itself.

I think the main motivation here is money. These drug manufacturers obviously don't have any sympathy with pw"MS". The annual cost of some "MS" drugs is higher than the annual salaries of many first-world patients. It is also higher than the lifetime earnings of many third-world patients.

Bribery has been alleged. Maybe insurance companies and their public counterparts are manipulating prices and carefully controlling where disease and disability claims can come from, making sure large numbers of sufferers cannot get the drugs. That way friends in the drug business can still charge huge prices to those patients who are "eligible", and the drugs need not even have as much efficacy as is claimed for them.

A similar state of affairs may exist, caused by artificial exclusion of patients who have no vascular problems, from normal controls in CCSVI testing. Does this exclusion happpen? That would make it harder for non-placebo patients using the CCSVI treatment to try to match the performance of the artificial 'normals'.

Another suspect practice is biasing the result by insisting that the patients all use "DMD"s too. The claim will always be possible that the efficacy shown in the trial was due to use of DMD's, and not the procedure under test. The degree of improvement really attributable to the drugs may be small enough to merely confuse assessment of the procedure's efficacy.

The key here is 'improvement'. The "DMD"s are preventative only. Patients who have had the CCSVI procedure have reported significant improvements in MRI tests, speed, balance, EDSS scores, etc. That cannot be said for immune-suppressing 'DMD's.

"If you didn't take your "DMD"s you would be worse."

is easier to defend than:

"Even if you didn't take "DMD's", the CCSVI procedure would still improve your symptoms."

on a similar topic 1eye, you'll probably find this of interest, the DMD situation in the UK:-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healt ... ients.html

In case you can't read the link I'll copy and paste below:-

NHS 'has wasted millions on MS drugs which did nothing to help patients'
The NHS has wasted millions of pounds on MS drugs which did nothing to help patients, according to experts.

They called for a Government-backed scheme to provide the drugs to be scrapped and called for a public inquiry.
In total at least £250 million could have been saved if a review had been carried out on the “costly failure” after its first two years, they warn.
This money could have been used to help other health service patients, including those with multiple sclerosis.
Charities backed the call for the scheme to be abandoned.
Set up in 2004 it was intended to allow expensive MS drugs on the NHS.

A key feature of its design was that the price of the drugs would be cut if they proved ineffective.
However, there has been no price reduction over the past six years, despite signs that the drugs were not working.
Recent research results show that patients actually did worse on the drugs than if they were given a placebo.
Prof George Ebers, from Oxford University, one of a number of MS experts who have written articles in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) criticising the project, said: “The scheme may have been well intentioned, but perhaps the public interest would be served by an independent inquiry.”
More than 100,000 people suffer from the devastating disease in Britain.
Patients experience difficulty walking or speaking and there is currently no known cure.
MS itself is caused by the destruction of myelin, a fatty protective sheath surrounding the body's central nervous system.
The MS society backed calls for the scheme to be abandoned.
Simon Gillespie, the charity’s chief executive, said that while it had given many patients people access to drugs it was “stuck in the past and has failed to take account of the most up to date evidence and practices.”
He added: “We are calling on the new government to work to ensure that people with MS across the UK have equity of access to the right drug, at the right time in line with current evidence.
“This cannot be achieved through the current scheme."
The four drugs involved Avonex, Betaferon, Copaxone and Rebif, cost around £8,000 per patient per year.
In 2002 they were rejected for use on the NHS by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), the Government’s drugs rationing body, because they were too expensive.
However, the following year the Government and the pharmaceutical companies involved agreed to start a “risk sharing” scheme, which saw an initial reduction in the price with the promise of more to come if the drugs did not work very well.
Around 10,000 patients in Britain are thought to have received the drugs thanks to the scheme.
A Department of Health spokesman said: "The risk sharing scheme has brought many benefits to MS patients including better access to drugs, a stronger network of MS specialists including specialist nurses and a better platform for MS research.
“We continue to monitor the progress of the scheme to ensure best value for money.”

Back on track though, Alzheimer's has also been linked to low levels of B12.

Japan raised it's based level to about 2.5 times the accepted level of B12 for Europe and North America and watched over the next two decades as Alzheimers and Dementia cases plummeted.

What's most interesting about the new press on Alzheimer's as a vascular disease, is that researchers are admitting the drugs were a failure.
Blocking amyloid protein did nothing to stop progression of the disease. (sounds familiar, eh?) This has sent physicians looking for prevention. They are looking at Alzheimer's as a disease that can be modulated and prevented with cardiovascular health measures. Makes you wonder how much longer it will take to look at MS from this perspective---

Arnold said he now manages his middle-aged patients' cholesterol, blood pressure, obesity and sugar levels much more aggressively than he used to, to make sure that their blood vessels are feeding enough blood to their brain and that they avoid diabetes, which can make brain cells more vulnerable to damage.

"If you can manage these well in your 50s, you can probably reduce your risk of developing Alzheimer's, some people estimate by as much as 50%," he said. "Or at least delay the onset of Alzheimer's by a couple of years" — pushing memory loss into your 80s or beyond.

Even after symptoms of dementia have begun, evidence suggests that regular aerobic exercise can improve quality of life, said Heather Snyder, director of medical and scientific operations for the Alzheimer's Association. "It's beneficial whenever you start."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... e/2554843/

EJC--interesting you mention low B12 and Alzheimer's. When I was putting together the endothelial health program (research for MS patients based on the book The Cardiovascular Cure) I found research connecting low B12 levels to endothelial damage and dysfunction. Makes sense. Here's the program. http://www.ccsvi.org/index.php/helping- ... ial-health

cheer

Antonu wrote:Guys, what about stem cell treatments. Can this be of any help?

Have you been to the stem cell subforum? http://www.thisisms.com/forum/stem-cells-f25/