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Dr. Kim Mulvihill ReportingIt's that time again, time for Utah's 18th annual MS 150 mile bike tour. The fundraiser benefits the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
This weekend up to 3,000 cyclists will head to Logan for two days of biking. The goal is to raise awareness and money to help support the fight against multiple sclerosis.
To understand why so many people will ride so many miles, you just have to think about someone who has multiple sclerosis.
Dr. John Rose, University of Utah: "The most typical would be a young female, say in the 20's or 30's, prime of life, ready to have a full career and family, and yet suddenly they start having neurological attacks."
Doctor John Rose, a neuroimmunologist with the University of Utah and the VA medical center is at the forefront of basic science research into this unpredictable and often devastating disease.
Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disorder that erodes myelin, the protective covering of nerve fibers.
Dr. John Rose: "So if we lose that myelin it has a number of consequences. One, we can't get our signals down the nerve fibers to tell the next neuron what to do, or the next muscle how to twitch.
He says if we hope to find a cure we must first better understand the cause of this complex condition.
Dr. John Rose: "Probably many many genes contribute to susceptibility to MS, and then an environmental exposure. And that's where the mystery is, what is the environmental exposure.”
Many believe it could be a virus that tips the scales. That in response to fighting the infection, the body inadvertently turns on itself and attacks the nervous system.
Dr. John Rose: “We were just trying to get rid of that virus, but uh oh, we've developed an immunity to part of our nervous system. If that persists then we get a disease.”
He says we're learning more all the time about the role of inflammation -- knowledge that is leading to more successful treatments.
Dr. John Rose: “The hallmark of a very successful therapy is marked improvement in the patient and that's what we're looking for. Something where we can not only slow the disease down, but we can get complete disease suppression and allow patients to recover to the best degree possible."
Doctor Rose says we've been lucky in the past decade to have five new medications approved for multiple sclerosis. He thinks we'll see another five in the next decade.
