A New Approach to M.S. Could Transform Treatment of Other Diseases

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/07/24/multiple-sclerosis-new-treatment

Multiple sclerosis was once seen as a “dead-end disease.” But lots of little interventions have added up to remarkable progress. Should that change how we take on other conditions?

One good thing was this.

“Louth ended up being Patient 48 in the stem-cell trial run by Sadiq’s center. On paper, only small benefits over the placebo were seen, and only in patient groups with higher disability scores; for that subgroup, walking times improved, and also bladder function. Louth told me about her subjective experience of the treatment: “I feel sharper. That brain fog, that feeling of flightiness, where you’re everywhere but where you’re supposed to be”—she felt that it had lifted, and that her heat intolerance became “pretty much nonexistent.” For the first time in a long time, she enjoyed rather than feared summer. Many doctors and patients say that the more difficult-to-measure symptoms—those that affect mood or cognitive function—are more important. Oh said that they are sometimes termed “silent symptoms,” but “they are not at all silent for patients.”