I will be running with the Uni of Manchester this coming May. I'm choosing to raise funds for the MS Society to support someone who has recently been diagnosed; any support would be much appreciated and of course your money goes to a great cause.

Written below is a summary of what I've learnt about the disease.

Multiple Sclerosis is an autoimmune disease. Just like cancer is a disease of the body working against itself, MS is the body degrading insulative nervous tissue. Just like a house has insulation around electrical wires - ensuring current flows from source to appliance - our own nerve cells are wrapped in an insulating layer called the myelin sheath.This is all for analogous reasons to the switch and bulb. For example walking requires, in part, electrical signals to be sent to our legs from the brain: Should myelin break down somewhere along the nervous pathway, the signal may be distorted by the time it reaches the destination, or indeed, signals can be sent without volition. This can be characterised by parkinsons disease where the sufferer has involuntary muscular contractions. With age, myelin thins naturally and this will in part explain why our response to stimulus slows - and racing drivers retire. MS is believed to break down the insulative myelin through the immune system attacking the nerve cells, but specifically in the brain. Currently however, not only is it not thoroughly understood as to what is the cause of this, but also, why there are multiple forms, categorised as:

'http://www.healthline.com/health/multiple-sclerosis -

Relapsing-remitting: This form of multiple sclerosis comes and goes over time. Symptoms can be severe for a time but then
disappear. About 85 percent of multiple sclerosis patients develop onset of the disease in this manner (Murray, T., et al., 2013).

Secondary-progressive

: After the initial attack, the disease may begin to progress in a more deliberate way. In this type of MS, symptoms do not subside. Before new therapies were created, about 50 percent of people with multiple sclerosis entered a progressive stage. However, the effectiveness of the new therapies has not been fully evaluated (Murray T., et al, 2013).

Primary-progressive

People who develop this form of the disease generally do so later in life. They decline slowly, without many ups and downs.

Progressive relapsing

In this form of multiple sclerosis, symptoms initially progress slowly but eventually worsen over time.

Multiple sclerosis is very unpredictable. Some people have an initial attack and don't progress. Sometimes, in older people, progression will stop altogether. According to the Multiple Sclerosis Association of America, it is unclear why the disease affects people in such a variety of ways. '

Research needs funding to help further understanding of how the disease functions so potential treatments and drug development can be better informed.

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