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Delayed Neurodegeneration Induced by Amino Acid Agonists
Submitted by skedlo on Mon, 2007-09-17 08:11.
This isn't new research that deals with substances that can cause neurodegeneration (i.e. glutamate). Also, it deals with chicken retinas. But, listening to a story on NPR got me interested in pursuing some more research on this--there are literally hundreds of abstracts devoted to excitatory amino acids.
A football player recently had a severe neck/head injury during a game. On the way to the hospital, in the ambulance, the doctor injected an super-cooled saline solution to bring the player's core temperature down to 92 degrees (a therapy that theoretically is an antagonist therapy to the release of excitatory amino acids in the brain and CNS). A day or two later, the doctor revived the player from the purposely induced coma-like state and noticed that there was minimal CNS damage, and the player could move around easily almost immediately.
Doctors have known about this for more than a few years now, but it is not an accepted practice (even though it is extensively practiced) because there haven't been any clinical trials up until this point. This seems to point almost directly to trauma--especially physical--as a main culprit in the etiology of MS.
trauma
I know three people, I am one of them, who developed acute onset of MS following trauma. My nuerologist, an MS specialist, said it was from "trauma". I think the studies are flawed- just as they had to reevaluate the nurses study that HRT caused heart attacks as they were studying much older women who had not started the use of estrogen until they already had heart damage.
now we know that estrogen cannot be started after a long interval without it. Please see Sunday's NYTimes.
I believe there is extreme resistance to "trauma in MS " because of the legal consequences.
they'll just say you are grasping at straws
Look this is anecdotal. I know a woman who just had spine surgery on her neck. She had had an accident and suffered some brain injury. This was complicated by the fact that she had, thirty years ago, a spine operation to save her mobility after another accident. She was using a walker and a wheelchair. We used to compare symptoms, and lately (since the second accident) she had ''overtaken" me and was experiencing quicker progression of her disabilities. Then she had the second neck operation.
The doctor found that (perhaps because of osteoporosis-related changes) she had spiny protrusions inside her neck that were poking into her spinal cord. He removed these, and put a protective tube into her spine to help support it. Incidentally this may be stopping the protrusions regrowing. Two (more) of her vertebrae have been fused.
Anyway the symptoms (foot drop, weakness, fingers stiffening and curling up, bladder control, and cognitive problems) are improving since the operation. She was not expecting that.
I know I sound like a chiropractor, but I have had severe trauma to my head as a teenager, and can remember trauma that happened very close to when I have had attacks. I wonder if the lesions and black holes in the white, gray, normal and abnormal -appearing brain matter are somehow secondary to some trauma. I know my symptoms are explainable by damage to my brain stem, but apparently a lot of these same symptoms can be caused by excess calcium at the site of a neck injury.
Amino Acids
Re: this article, I'm not sure I understand...Are amino acids helpful or harmful to those of us with ms? I take a whey protein shake that is full of amino acids.
Amino acids are the building
Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins and are necessary for life.
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Art Mellor, Accelerated Cure Project for MS, art-msnews -at- acceleratedcure.com
By any chance is it at all
By any chance is it at all relevant that copaxone is made up of amino acids?