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Multiple sclerosis: New insights and trends
Authors: Khaled Mohamed Mohamed Koriem
Number of views: 304
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most famous autoimmune disease attacking the central
nervous system. It attacks people from age 20–50 years old and the females' attacks
double than males' attacks. MS is an autoimmune disease affecting principally the central
nervous system that cause nerve sheath demyelination followed by axon damage and
paralysis. MS symptoms include muscle weakness, weak reflexes, muscle spasm, difficult
in move, miss-coordination and unbalance with others. There are many factors may be
responsible for MS: microbial, viral, smoking, stress, environmental toxins, contaminated
diet, and gout. MS is wide spread in the populations in North Europe and this related to
lack of vitamin D due to decrease of sunlight exposure. MS biomarkers include nitric
oxide, interleukin-6, nitric oxide synthase, fetuin-A and osteopontin. MS is not a genetic
disease where MS occurs when human leukocyte antigen system related genes are
changed in chromosome 6. The physiology of MS is monitored by activation of immuneinflammatory,
oxidative, and nitrosative stress pathways. MS is including two main steps:
(1) myelin sheath destruction and formation of lesions and, (2) inflammation. Four types
of MS can be distinguished: relapsing-remitting, primary progressive, secondary progressive
and progressive relapsing. Nine treatments have been accepted for relapsingremitting
MS type: interferon b-1a, interferon b-1b, mitoxantrone, natalizumab, glatiramer
acetate, fingolimod, dimethyl fumarate, teriflunomide, and alemtuzumab, however,
the only treatment used is mitoxantrone for progressive MS but many of MS treatments
side effects are recorded. Complementary treatments also used in MS treatments such as:
vitamin D, Yoga, medicinal plants, oxygen therapy, acupuncture and reflexology.