A large-scale genomics study has uncovered new genetic variations associated with multiple sclerosis (MS).
The findings confirm the link between MS and the autoimmune system and help researchers to better understand the mechanism of this complex disease.
Does this mean we are closer to a cure?
At the moment the new information can tell researchers more about the disease mechanism and how it works. MS is a very complex disease influenced by extrinsic (environmental) and intrinsic (genetic) factors. These findings can help guide scientists in the direction to finding better treatments.
Read more here.
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This is indeed a very promising lead for MS research. The suspicion of autoimmunity fits with the onset (mid-life), gender (more female), and pathology (demyelination) of those afflicted.
In the Pacific Northwest, we have a lot of billboards around informing Seattlites of the increased prevalence of MS in the upper left corner of the country. The clever signs ask if it's the trees or the rain. Indeed, northern latitude seems to be a risk factor.
It is quite interesting that Washington reportedly has one of the nation's highest rates of multiple sclerosis. Yes, northern latitude seems to be a risk factor but the reason for this remains a mystery.
1. Speaking as a patient, I am very skeptical of genomics. Genomics is cool, it is the new exciting toy, the biggest hardest science available to biologists, but it hasn't produced cure one, and frankly, the thinking behind it is not nearly as new as the equipment. We have known for quite some time that there is a genetic factor or factors that contribute to MS, and I fail to see how naming/numbering a gene correlated to MS will help. Even if we knew as much about the human genome as the hype would lead us to believe, genomics hasn't produced a single diagnostic test that gives the patient any actionable information. All of the useful genetic tests (e.g. Tay-Sachs) predate the human genome project by quite a bit.
Genomics is cool, it is very exciting, but it will not be productive for quite some time, if at all.
2. The most parsimonious explanation for the latitude gradient (living more than 40 degrees from the equator, unless you live in one of the few non-industrialized societies more than 40 degrees from the equator) is that it is the artifact of differential access to diagnostic technology. We don't know that, but the burden of proof is on the one postulating a connection other than that.
3. I really wish that people would investigate environmental factors other than climate and maybe diet, because those areas have been exhausted. even the hygiene hypothesis doesn't get much attention, or that many results. I mean, if they come up with a trial of this EBV that seen idea, I will give it a shot, so to speak, but the hygiene hypothesis has been around for a while.
4. And even that assumes that MS is autoimmune, and the fact that somebody came up with a plausible explanation for MS that is not autoimmune (whether or not Zamboni is right and while, as an MS patient, I hope that he is, the fact that his theory exists at all is my point), really indicates how narrow MS research has become, because biology has become hypnotized by the glamour of the human genome project.
5. speaking as a patient and an anthrogeek, I am skeptical of MS research that claims to say anything about genetics from anything but a relatedness study, because the demographic data that medical researchers collect is self-reported race, which only records for categories that are much more predictive of environment than they are of genetics. The proof is in the pudding, or lack thereof. Medicine has been looking for racial differences since the eighteenth century without success. The one thing that medicine has found is a difference in outcomes, due to environment, but keeping track of information is only useful if you know what you are looking at.