Avoid Mental Potholes While Navigating Your Life

In my last column, I shared how I’m always on alert for speed bumps as I travel down life’s highway, while living with ALS. These are the metaphorical unknowns that pop up, and challenge my resilience and positive mindset. But in addition to speed bumps, it’s the mental potholes that…

Harvard Medical School researchers have discovered how a mutation of the C9ORF72 gene causes the changes in energy production and nerve cell function that are linked to inherited forms of ALS and frontotemporal dementia, or FTD. The mutation produces two toxic proteins that can disrupt the normal processing of genetic instructions,…

Measuring neurofilaments in brain and spinal fluid appears to be a reliable way of confirming an ALS diagnosis, Belgian and German researchers report. This finding is important because it takes an average of a year from the appearance of the first symptoms before doctors can diagnose the disease. The discovery could…

https://vimeo.com/216244227 This film by Dan Habib is all about the extraordinary life of high school principal Gene Connolly. Connolly was the much-loved principal of Concord High School for 14 years before he was struck by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2014. MORE: Explaining the progression…

The Israel Innovation Authority (IIA) has awarded BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics a $2.1 million grant to support the development of NurOwn, an innovative mesenchymal stem cell-based platform to treat neurodegenerative diseases including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Several metals may be linked to the risk of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), according to results of a small study in Italy. The findings state that levels of metals and other essential trace elements in blood, urine, and hair may serve as biomarkers to diagnose and monitor ALS. The study titled,…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCZunn4ML5o If you’re living with a chronic illness, it’s easy to slip into a malaise and feel sorry for yourself. This isn’t a helpful state of mind and it potentially means you’re missing out on life. In this video from NewLifeOutlook, Anna Scanlon shares her five…

The former malaria therapy pyrimethamine reduces levels of an ALS-linked protein in the spinal fluid of patients whose disease stems from gene mutations, a Phase 1/2 clinical trial shows. The protein is SOD1. The mutations connected with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis are in the SOD1 gene that controls the protein. The…

I have a good friend who also lives with a life-threatening illness; mine is ALS, her’s is cancer. Recently we visited, and I asked how things were going. Smiling broadly, she replied, “Oh, I’m still just one banana peel away from dropping the other shoe! So, hide the bananas!” We…

Mallinckrodt has launched the Phase 2b PENNANT trial (NCT03068754) to investigate the safety and effectiveness of H.P. Acthar Gel (repository corticotropin injection) as a treatment for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The H.P. Acthar Gel is an experimental injectable drug that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted fast…