Multiple Sclerosis Syndrome Have the doctors found a cure? Can the hormone in pregnant women help people with the MS Syndrome?

By: Kayley Brault

What is Multiple Sclerosis Syndrome?• MS is a very horrible

disease that affects your physical ability to do things. It affects 1 in 10,000 people

• Symptoms appear around the ages of 20 and 30.

• It occurs more in women than in men.

• Common Symptoms: numbness in the limbs, paralysis, and sometimes blindness.

What causes MS?• It is believed that the cause is

polygenic, meaning, the person has to inherit the disease through a specific combination of genes from both the mother and the father.

• The immune system becomes overactive and attacks neurons (brain cells) by stripping away the productive coating. Because the coating is being stripped away, the neurons don’t conduct the brain’s electrical signs as well.

Early Stages and Later Stages of MS•There is some inflammation in the brain and other mild

neurological symptoms that come and go.•After 10 years, the disease goes into the secondary

symptoms begin to kick in including disabling symptoms increasing and taking hold as the brain atrophies (a wasting or decrease in the size of a body organ, tissue, or part owing to a disease, injury, or lack of use).

What is so horrible about MS?

• It cuts life short.• It kills the quality of life.

Estriol• Estriol is a weak form of

estrogen that is made by the fetal placental unit.

• It is found in very large amounts in pregnant women.

• This hormone is used widely throughout Europe and Asia to treat menopause symptoms but it’s not approved in the U.S. because it doesn’t prevent osteoporosis.

Did the estriol work?

•Dr. Rhonda Voskuhl conducted studies on 12 women (6 with relapsing remitting MS and 6 in the secondary progressive stage for a 6 month period.

•She used the ertriol hormone in her patients.

•After patients went through MRI testings, Dr. Voskuhl saw that the lesions on their brains had decreased.

Did the estriol work? (cont.)

•When the estriol treatment ended, the lesions went back to the original size.

• She began estriol treatments and once again the lesions shrunk proving that estriol can help people with MS.

After that’s all said and done…

•Dr. Vokuhl also said that based on the results, estriol can help women with MS.

•Further studies still need to take place in order to prove that the hormone will work every time and to show that it will repeat itself in the treatments as well.

References• http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/articl

e/4746• http://www.thefreedictionary.com/atrophies• http://depts.washington.edu/neurolog/images/

multiple_sclerosis.jpg• http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/

thumb/5/56/Estriol.png/800px-Estriol.png• http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/brain-

neuron.gif• http://www.faqs.org/health/images/

uchr_08_img0865.jpg• http://www.unav.es/neurologia/

UnidadEsclerosisMultiple/MRI%20MS%20Noseworthy%20N%20Engl%20J%20med%202000.jpg