Multiple Sclerosis is an autoimmune disease that impairs the nervous system. In all autoimmune diseases, a person's immune system attacks the body, resulting in inflammation of various organs or tissues. The components of the immune system responsible for this effect are antibodies and cells. Antibodies, proteins produced by white blood cells, typically are made in response to infection caused by pathogens like bacteria and viruses. In autoimmune diseases, normal molecules of the body are mistakenly recognized by the immune system and targeted for destruction. In multiple sclerosis, the immune system specifically targets a protein called myelin, which coats nerve fibers.

Some patients with multiple sclerosis have severe symptoms, including paralysis, the inability to move or feel due to nerve damage, while others suffer only from mild weakness or numbness.

Symptoms can be persistent or periodic and may also include loss of balance, tremors and loss of coordination.

Multiple sclerosis shares much in common with other autoimmune diseases. Research on any particular one usually applies to the other autoimmune diseases to some degree. They have similar underlying causes and conditions, and consequently similar ways of dealing with them.

The main symptoms that label an autoimmune disease as multiple sclerosis include the attack on the myelin sheath that causes nerve damage. It can be diagnosed by lesions in the brain that do not move when a second MRI is done 6 months later. One research study found that most damaged myelin sheaths had a herpes virus in it.

Lack of vitamin D appears to be strongly correlated with multiple sclerosis. It is more common in northern climates where there is less sunlight and therefore less vitamin D is produced by the skin. I have read that intake up to 1400 units a day may be called for when fighting MS. Diets low in saturated fats seem to be somewhat protective while with many autoimmune diseases a saturated fat like coconut oil is very good.

For repair of the myelin sheath essential fatty acids and MSM (methylsulfonylmethane) have been noted to be of value. And oxygen supplementation appears to have much higher usage in multiple sclerosis and can produce dramatic results in some cases when enough is used.

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