ALS Disease Prevention

Those familiar with ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) understand what a debilitating and heartbreaking disease it can be. A normally healthy person can lose all muscle function and eventually succumb to the disease within the space of a year. More and more cases of ALS crop up each year, so it is no wonder that people are looking for inventive ways to combat this horrible affliction.

What Is ALS?

• Before you can find ways to fight a disease, you must seek to understand it. ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) is a motor neuron disease in which the nerve cells in the spine that feed the muscles begin to atrophy. As time goes on and the nerve cells degenerate, the voluntary muscles associated with the nerve cells begin to weaken and die.

Symptoms of ALS

• The symptoms of ALS are quite cruel. As the nerves that control the voluntary muscles degenerate---consequently rendering the muscles useless---the afflicted individual experiences a slurring of speech and loses coordination.

  The way ALS affects a person is a blessing and a curse. Patients are always alert and aware, so they can generally find alternative ways of communicating and accomplishing tasks. However, they also remain too aware of the affliction that is slowly paralyzing them.

Prevention of ALS

• While there is no cure for ALS, there are some biomedical and nutritional weapons to combat it. FDA-approved drugs such as Rilutek and Neurontin are two of the most popular ones. These work by blocking some of the molecules that cause cell death.

  From a nutritional standpoint, it has been found that patients with ALS have an elevated level of sulfur in their bodies. Sulfur affects the central nervous system by causing an inflammatory response. Unfortunately, though, cutting out exposure to sulfur will not necessarily help. The presence of sulfur is related to the disease, not to a certain diet. However, lowering sulfur levels of patients with ALS by using sulfur antagonists seems to provide some short-term relief.

  Although sulfur reduction isn't necessarily a win for the good guys, many doctors and scientists are looking deeper into nutritional factors for the prevention of ALS. Doctors are studying the effects of certain vitamins that, given in high doses, could prevent the death of nerve cells. These vitamins are beta-carotene, selenium, vitamin C and vitamin E. And while many of these vitamins alone do not seem to have an effect on the prevention of nerve cell death, certain cocktails of various vitamins do.

  Keep in mind that any regimen of vitamins should be approved by a doctor as the overdosing of vitamins can cause adverse side effects.