Tag: multiple sclerosis (MS)

  • Health

    Vitamin D could slow MS progression

    For patients in the early stages of multiple sclerosis (MS), low levels of vitamin D were found to strongly predict disease severity and hasten its progression, according to a new study led by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) investigators in collaboration with Bayer HealthCare.

    2–3 minutes
  • Health

    Epstein-Barr Virus implicated as a cause of MS

    Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and a team of collaborators have observed for the first time that the risk of multiple sclerosis (MS) increases by many folds following infection with the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). This finding implicates EBV as a contributory cause to multiple sclerosis. The…

    3–4 minutes
  • Health

    Drug for MS reactivates virus causing deadly brain disease

    The virus responsible for progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), a rare brain disease that typically affects AIDS patients and other individuals with compromised immune systems, has been found to be reactivated in multiple sclerosis patients being treated with natalizumab (Tysabri). The findings by Harvard researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and collaborators at Johns…

    4–6 minutes
  • Health

    Stronger evidence found linking Epstein-Barr virus and risk of multiple sclerosis

    Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, Kaiser Permanente, and a team of collaborators have found further evidence implicating the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) as a possible contributory cause to multiple sclerosis. The study appears in the advance online edition of the June 2006 issue of Archives of Neurology. MS is a chronic degenerative disease…

    2–3 minutes
  • Health

    High intake of vitamin D linked to reduced risk of multiple sclerosis

    More than 185,000 women from the Brigham and Women’s-based Nurses’ Health Study and Nurses’ Health Study II, who were free of multiple sclerosis (MS), were selected for a research study. The participants filled out dietary questionnaires every four years between 1980 and 1999 that assessed their vitamin D intake along with other dietary information. During…

    1–2 minutes
  • Health

    New multiple sclerosis drugs are found

    Five years ago, scientists at Harvard University began to take a close look at Copolymer 1, a treatment for multiple sclerosis, that is put together from a string of amino acids, or protein pieces, assembled in random order. “We wanted to determine if there are one or two active compounds within the random Copolymer 1…

    1–2 minutes
  • Health

    High levels of Epstein-Barr virus antibodies in women linked to risk of multiple sclerosis

    Multiple sclerosis is a chronic degenerative disease of the central nervous system. Nationwide, there are an estimated 250,000 to 350,000 people with MS. Researchers have long wondered how MS develops and why it targets certain individuals, though they have long suspected that a virus was involved. Alberto Ascherio, associate professor in the Departments of Epidemiology…

    1–2 minutes
  • Health

    No link between hepatitis B vaccine and risk of multiple sclerosis

    The French government in 1998 decided to temporarily suspend hepatitis B vaccine programs in schools after several cases of multiple sclerosis were reported a few weeks after the vaccine had been administered in 1995 and 1997 as part of a mass immunization program. Multiple sclerosis is a chronic degenerative disease of the central nervous system.…

    1–2 minutes