Lou Gehrig S Disease

A new way of delivering a cellular growth factor may lead to an improvement in treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. A variety of work in animals has suggested that ciliary neurotrophic factor, or CNTF, could slow the course of the disease, but an earlier trial in humans was halted because of the drug's severe side effects, which included weight loss and puffing of the body. Dr. Patrick Aebischer of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland told the neuroscience meeting about a preliminary clinical trial in which CNTF-producing cells were encapsulated in a porous membrane and implanted in the spinal cord.

Charles McPhee, the self-proclaimed "Dream Doctor" who decoded dreams on his nationally syndicated radio show until Lou Gehrig's disease forced him off the air in 2006, has died. He was 49. McPhee died May 8 at his Woodland Hills home of the neurodegenerative disease also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, his family said. Through his radio show, McPhee "made dream interpretation more present in pop culture," said Cynthia Richmond, a behavioral therapist and dream counselor.

Re "Scientists Find Gene's Trigger in Gehrig's Disease," Jan. 26: I lost my mother, M. Madeleine Weber, to Lou Gehrig's disease a few months ago. This disease is particularly horrible and I am thankful that help may be on the way for all those afflicted now and in the future. My mother taught German and French in Orange County for the last 30 years. She never complained when the disease struck and continued teaching until her voice was gone. She will be missed by her family and hundreds of her friends and students.

Perhaps there’s more to predicting our future via the hand than we thought -- but the clues may not come from the palm, so much as the finger length. The latest in a handful of studies linking finger length to various traits concludes that people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, tend to have longer ring fingers, compared with their index fingers, than do people without the disease. British researchers measured the length of the index and ring fingers of 110 people with and without ALS . Dividing the index-finger length by the ring-finger length gives a ratio that is linked to testosterone levels in the womb, which is related, unsurprisingly, to whether the hand belongs to a male.

University of Pittsburgh researchers said Monday that they had found a quicker way to diagnose a paralyzing muscle disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig's disease, perhaps in time for drugs to delay its fatal progression. ALS is usually diagnosed after a patient has been suffering from its symptoms for months. The team said they had identified a protein fingerprint, called a biomarker, that shows that someone has the deadly and incurable condition.

Here's the rundown on guests and topics for the weekend's public-affairs programs: Today "Evans, Novak, Hunt & Shields": White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, 2:30 p.m., repeats Sunday 8 a.m. CNN. "Contrapunto": Financial expert Ivan Gonzalez discusses the stock market, 8 a.m. (KVEA 52). "To the Contrary": Job relocation; high-tech industry; unions, 1 p.m. (28). "John McLaughlin's One on One": 1:30 p.m. (28). "Firing Line": Human rights in China, 2 p.m. (28).

Charlie Wedemeyer, the inspirational high school football coach who battled Lou Gehrig's disease for more than 30 years, has died. He was 64. Wedemeyer died early Thursday in a San Jose hospital of pneumonia and was surrounded by family and friends, said his wife, Lucy. He had undergone five surgeries in the last two weeks because of intestinal blockages. "The last two weeks were actually a gift to me, kind of getting us ready," his wife said. "He was amazing right till the end."

Patients with Lou Gehrig's disease should be allowed to take a free experimental drug that promises to slow, but not stop, their relentless paralysis, government advisors recommended Friday. If the Food and Drug Administration agrees, thousands of patients could begin vying to get Myotrophin free through a lottery while manufacturer Cephalon Inc. seeks full approval to sell it. The decision posed a dilemma for the FDA advisors.

Harvard scientists have discovered that military men who served as far back as World War I had a 60% increased risk of dying from the devastating motor neuron disease ALS, although the research does not explain why. Hints that the disease was linked to service in the Persian Gulf War led scientists to look at the possibility that amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also called Lou Gehrig's disease, is somehow linked to wartime environments. Patients with ALS lose their ability to move.

Hall of Fame pitcher Jim "Catfish" Hunter, who ushered in the era of escalating baseball salaries when he signed the sport's first lucrative free-agent deal in the 1970s, has Lou Gehrig's disease. Hunter's wife, Helen, said Monday that her husband went to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore last week after experiencing trouble with his motor skills. Doctors there confirmed that he had the fatal disease, which attacks nerves in the spinal cord and brain and causes progressive paralysis.

A Boston researcher will receive a $1-million prize from the Prize4Life foundation's ALS Biomarker Challenge, an effort to develop new ways to monitor the progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to make it easier to test potential drugs for the disease. The prize is believed to be the biggest-ever challenge award related to a medical condition, but Prize4Life estimates it could halve the cost of clinical trials for new ALS drugs. Dr. Seward Rutkove of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center will receive the award formally in June.

Matthew Ruchinski likely doesn’t completely understand what ALS means. The 4-year-old from Pennsylvania just knows that his dad is sick — and that he plans to walk two miles in an event Saturday that will benefit people who have the disease, reports the Allentown Morning Call . Matthew's dad, James, was just 35 and in the process of adopting the boy when he was diagnosed with the fatal neurogenerative disease. About 5,600 Americans each year are diagnosed with ALS, officially called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's Disease, and life expectancy after diagnosis is just two to five years, according to the ALS Assn.

If Elizabeth Uyehara were alive, she would be pleased. Everything was working out as she had hoped. The terrible banality of her illness had ended, and she was about to make her final journey. Two hours before she died, David Jones' pager went off. He canceled his lunch and made a few phone calls to sort out the details with the hospital and the family. He went to his lab and picked up the paperwork and, before heading over the Sepulveda Pass, stopped at a 7-Eleven for some ice that he tossed into a cooler.

Repeated concussions may contribute to the development of symptoms that mimic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , or Lou Gehrig's disease, a controversial group of researchers is suggesting in a provocative new study. The cause of most cases of ALS--a devastating degenerative disease named after the baseball great who was its most famous victim--is largely a mystery. Only 5% to 10% of those who are diagnosed with ALS carry the distinctive gene mutation known to give rise to the disease: Of the 30,000 Americans who have the disease at any given time, at least 27,000 have no clue as to its origins.

Tony Judt, a leading historian of postwar Europe and outspoken political essayist who also wrote movingly about his struggle with Lou Gehrig's disease, has died. He was 62. Judt, who was a history professor at New York University, died Friday at his home in Manhattan of complications from the disease, the university announced. In 2005, his career reached its zenith with the publication of "Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945," a hefty book that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Charlie Wedemeyer, the inspirational high school football coach who battled Lou Gehrig's disease for more than 30 years, has died. He was 64. Wedemeyer died early Thursday in a San Jose hospital of pneumonia and was surrounded by family and friends, said his wife, Lucy. He had undergone five surgeries in the last two weeks because of intestinal blockages. "The last two weeks were actually a gift to me, kind of getting us ready," his wife said. "He was amazing right till the end."

The AIDS virus can cause a form of Lou Gehrig's disease, French and American researchers have found, but symptoms can improve or even resolve with treatment. The findings support the theory that viruses may cause some other forms of the disease, also called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (or ALS), and offer hope that those forms may also be amenable to treatment. No treatment is available now.

Singer-actress-comedian Carla Zilbersmith did her best not to let being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the progressive neurodegenerative disease, dampen her high-spirited sense of humor. "For those of you who don't know, I was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease a couple of weeks ago.... I hate baseball," the San Francisco Chronicle reported the red-haired performer telling an audience at Berkeley's Hillside Club in January 2008. "I'd really much rather have been diagnosed with a basketball disease.

At the crux of the lingering debate over Dr. Jack Kevorkian is an unresolved question of character: What kind of guy would devote his life to helping other people die? Was he a compassionate visionary, fighting to end the suffering of the ill, or was there something darkly twisted about a man who defied the law and risked years in prison as he pushed the death toll well beyond 100? That sort of inscrutable extremism proved irresistible to Al Pacino and Barry Levinson. "We had talked about doing this kind of story, this kind of person … a true zealot, and what the makeup of that is," said Pacino, who, wearing thick-framed glasses and with his hair cropped short and white, plays Kevorkian in the new HBO film "You Don't Know Jack," airing Saturday.