Improved nutrition mitigates ALS disease

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ALS disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis sometimes called Lou Gehrig's disease is "a rapidly progressive, invariably fatal neurological disease that attacks the nerve cells responsible for controlling voluntary muscles," according to National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

The disease can result from a series of factors including free radicals, misfolded protein, aggregated aberrant protein, excitotoxicity, mitochondrial dysfunction and apoptosis.

Patel B. P. and Hamadeh M. J. from the York University in Toronto, Canada published a review of previous studies on nutrition or exercise in human and animal models and ALS outcomes in the Dec 2009 issue of Clinical Nutrition saying that treatments do not already lead to good outcomes.

However, they suggested that "vitamin E, folic acid, alpha lipoic acid, lyophilized red wine, coenzyme Q10, epigallocatechin gallate, Ginkgo biloba, melatonin, Cu chelators, and regular low and moderate intensity exercise, as well as treatments with catalase and l-carnitine" may help mitigate the ffects of ALS while caloric restriction, malnutrition and high-intensity exercise are contraindicated in this disease model.

An estimated 20,000 American live with ALS and about 5000 people in the United States are diagnosed with the disease each year.

By David Liu