Is multiple sclerosis curable? The answer to this question depends on who you ask. Conventional medical researchers typically don’t consider MS curable, but some experimental and alternative medical researchers do.
A standard medical website, devoted to conventional medical perspectives will likely assert that great advances have been made in MS research and, consequently, much progress has been made in the treatment of the disease. The website is bound to explain that, with the use of various medications, and with attention to good nutrition, MS patients can control most of their symptoms and slow down the progression of the disease. According to this perspective, while MS cannot be completely eliminated, patients are able to go on leading productive lives.
Contemporary medical science recognizes that a combination of genetic, viral, environmental and immunological factors play a part in causing MS. Modifying these factors (where possible) to lower a patient’s risk can drastically reduce the speed at which MS progresses. From the standpoint of conventional medical science, those who are able to completely eliminate their symptoms by adopting such strategies have merely slowed down the progression of the disease. However, from the standpoint of alternative or experimental medicine, the elimination of the symptoms could be evidence of a cure. Curable MS could be a possibility for certain forms of the disease. One way to confirm it is to observe, over numerous years, a patient whose symptoms have been eliminated.
Is Multiple Sclerosis Curable From an Experimental Medicine Standpoint?
One of the less conventional understandings of MS is the theory that it is an infectious bacterial disease. This is not a new understanding of MS. In fact, it is one that was discussed in the 19th century and then in the second half of the 20th century. In the 1960s, Paul Le Gac proposed that Chlamydophila pneumoniae, the parasitic bacteria, might have a hand in causing MS. He treated some MS patients using various broad spectrum antibiotics. A number of them recovered remarkably. However, his results were rejected by his peers for various reasons. One of the reasons was that not all MS patients responded positively to the antibiotic treatment. Another one was that no controlled clinical trials had been done.
More recently, scientists at Vanderbilt University have detected Chlamydophila pneumoniae in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of MS patients and developed a combination–antibiotic therapy for it. The premise is that the bacteria are associated with MS and other neurological conditions. Their findings have been challenged by their peers, many of whom think the presence of the bacteria in the patients’ CSF was merely coincidental. Naturally, the Vanderbilt University scientists’ research efforts will continue. It seems possible that they will play a role in answering the question, “Is MS curable?”
