MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS

<<<BACK

  MS & DIABETES

  March 21, 2001

  Jean Administrator Member # 5

TORONTO, March 20 /CNW/ via NewsEdge Corporation -

A team of researchers led by Hospital for Sick Children (HSC) senior scientist Michael Dosch has determined that multiple sclerosis and type I (juvenile) diabetes mellitus are far more closely linked than previously thought, including the role cow milk protein plays as a risk factor in the development of both diseases for people who are genetically susceptible. This research is published in recent issues of The Journal of Immunology (April 1 and February 15, 2001).

Multiple sclerosis (MS) and type I diabetes mellitus are autoimmune disorders, where the body's immune system attacks its own tissue. The diseases are entirely different clinically, but have nearly identical ethnic and geographic distribution, genetic similarities, and, as is now known, shared environmental risk factors.

In a collaboration between The Hospital For Sick Children, St. Michael's Hospital and the Pittsburgh Children's Hospital, Dr.
Dosch's laboratory discovered a high degree of similarity in the autoimmunity of MS and diabetes patients, and that a widely used
mouse model for diabetes could also develop an MS-like disease.

"Much to our surprise, we found that immunologically, type I diabetes and multiple sclerosis are almost the same - in a test tube you can barely tell the two diseases apart," said Dr. Dosch, the study's
principal investigator, a senior scientist in the HSC Research Institute, and a professor of Paediatrics and Immunology at the University of Toronto (U of T). "We found that the autoimmunity was not specific to the organ system affected by the disease. Previously it was thought that in MS autoimmunity would develop in the central
nervous system, and in diabetes it would only be found in the pancreas. We found that both tissues are targeted in each disease."

In diabetes and MS, there is a long, drawn-out period of silent disease years before the appearance of symptoms and diagnosis of the disease. In diabetes, it is this "pre-diabetes" phase that is targeted by interventions to stop the development of the full-blown disease. Similar efforts are planned for individuals at high risk for
MS.

"We are planning a large international study with centres in Canada and the US to test the possibility of interventions during the pre-MS phase," added Dr. Dosch.

One of the major environmental risk factors for diabetes is exposure to cow milk protein. Based on the role of cow milk protein as a risk factor in the development of type I diabetes, an international global
diabetes prevention trial called TRIGR - Trial to Reduce Insulin-dependent diabetes in the Genetically at Risk - is expected
to begin later this year, with Dr. Dosch as the trial's basic science chair. In the first step to test just how far the similarities between MS and diabetes go, the study's researchers looked for signs
of abnormal immunity to cow milk in MS patients. Such abnormalities were indeed found in most patients, suggesting that similar processes may contribute to both diseases. If confirmed in a larger and
prospective family study, it may become possible to design dietary means to influence the course of MS as well as diabetes.

"The similarities found between MS and type I diabetes will open new avenues of research. Our next focus will be to study MS family members for signs of early MS," said Dr. Paul O'Connor, head of the MS clinic at St. Michael's Hospital, a co-author of the study and Associate Professor of Neurology at U of T.

Other collaborators on this research were: Shawn Winer, Igor Astsaturov, Roy K. Cheung, Lakshman Gunaratnam, Denise D. Wood and
Professor Mario Moscarello, all from the HSC Research Institute; Colin McKerlie, Sunnybrook and Women's Health Sciences Centre and the University of Toronto; and Professor Dorothy J. Becker, Children's
Hospital of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh.

Funding for this research was provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, the Canadian Diabetes Association, the US National Institutes of Health and the
Renziehausen Fund.

For further information: please contact: Laura Greer, Public Affairs, The Hospital for Sick Children, (416) 813-5046,
laura.greer(at)sickkids.ca; Tracy MacIsaac, Media Relations, St. Michael's Hospital, (416) 864-5047,macisaact(at)smh.toronto.on.ca

Copyright © 2001, Individual.com, Inc.TM

Jean Administrator Member # 5

 04-11-2001 11:59 PM   

Diabetes And Multiple Sclerosis Patients Share Common Autoantigens

WESTPORT, CT (Reuters Health) Mar 05 - Autoreactive T cells from both diabetic patients and multiple sclerosis (MS) patients target autoantigens in islet cells and the central nervous system, according to a report in the February 15th Journal of Immunology. As the authors point out, "what (usually) protects diabetics from MS, and MS patients from diabetes...could have therapeutic ramifications."

Dr. H.-Michael Dosch from The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and colleagues analyzed T cell autoreactivity in 38 patients with stable or relapsing MS, 54 newly diagnosed children with diabetes and 105 of their first-degree relatives, and 34 healthy controls.

Besides recognizing myelin basic protein epitopes, T cells from MS patients frequently targeted self-antigens associated with autoimmune diabetes, the authors report, a phenomenon rarely shown by T cells from healthy controls.

Similarly, T cells from about two-thirds of diabetes patients and their first-degree relatives at high risk of developing diabetes showed proliferative responses to at least one MS-associated antigen, the report indicates. Low-risk relatives were less likely to have such autoreactive T cells.

"Thus autoimmunity in diabetes and MS targets a similar set of self-proteins, with neither disease nor tissue selectivity, although epitopes and T cell specificities appear to differ," the researchers note.

"Our work implies that there is a lengthy, clinically silent pre-MS phase analogous to prediabetes," Dr. Dosch told Reuters Health. "That's good news: there is strong consensus that we will stop diabetes within a reasonable time frame through intervention therapies that are targeted to early prediabetes. We hope (and have some reason) that the same will turn out to be true for MS, where treatments are rather ineffective."

"We are preparing for a major, multi-center initiative with several US centers to seek out evidence for pre-MS," Dr. Dosch said.

J Immunol 2001;166:2831-2841.

Disclaimer: This material is provided as general medical information only and may not include all side effects or details relevant to a particular individual's treatment. Answers are not intended as advice for individual patients; please contact your own physician/neurologist  for specific recommendations.