Study: Destructiveness of MS cuts nerves in two Damage more
extensive than previously thought January 28, 1998 Web posted
at: 8:31 p.m. EDT (2031 GMT) BOSTON (CNN) -- New evidence shows
that multiple sclerosis, a neurological disease that affects
more than 300,000 Americans, may be more destructive to nerve
cells that previously thought. According to a study in the
latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers
at The Cleveland Clinic discovered that in some MS patients,
axons -- the long fibers on nerve cells that allow for
transmission of electrical impulses through the body -- are
severed. Such damage is permanent and irreversible, the
researchers said. Until now, the conventional wisdom was that MS
stripped away the myelin, or outside covering, of nerve cells in
the brain and spine -- and that those cells could compensate for
the loss. Scientists believed that was why many MS patients
seemed to get better for a time before beginning another
downhill slide. But by examining the autopsied