Research

ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, is a fatal neurodegenerative disease with no cure. Approximately 10% of cases are familial, having a direct genetic association, while the remaining 90% of cases are sporadic, having an unknown and complex origin triggered by lifestyle, environment, and genetics.

ALS is a silent killer. 1 in 300 people will receive an ALS diagnosis in their lifetime, a similar prevalence to that of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Due to the short life expectancy after diagnosis, it often feels overlooked in public health, with patients having little time for their voices to be heard. While the 2014 Ice Bucket Challenge brought much-needed attention, ALS remains without effective treatments, early diagnostic biomarkers, or a clear understanding of its causes.

Amytrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

Time to rethink: ALS in a Biodynamic Framework

In “Island of the Colorblind”, Oliver Sacks writes about the lytico-bodig that plagued the island through the 20th century. This described a ALS-Parkinsonism-Dementia (ALS-PDC) complex that remained a mystery since the 1960s, attracting neurologists from all over the world in hopes of solving it. This led to the discovery of the neurotoxin B-Methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA) in the culinary significant, native cycad plant Macrozamia communis, there were still unexplained reasons for the spread of the disease. Since then, research has uncovered a litany of occupational and environmental hazards associated with ALS, it has become evident that ALS is multi-phenotypic, multi-faceted, and pleiotropic disease that will have to address the root environmental causes in order to prevent and treat patients.

Despite a conglomeration of research, we are left with a dearth of preventive and therapeutic treatments as we continue to unravel the root etiology of ALS. A biodynamic framework is needed to remove artificial boundaries in neurodegenerative research. We need to acknowledge that ALS, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and other neurodegenerative diseases possess pathological and etiological overlaps. That disease risk is spatially and temporally mediated that combined lifestyle, behavior, genetics, exposures, and co-morbidities. And that the future of medicine must be personalized to our unique microbiology. Biodynamicism looks both deeper and higher up.

“If we do not know our own history, we are doomed to live it as though it were our private fate.”

Hannah Arendt, “Writing a Woman’s Life”