
New ALS discovery: Scientists reverse protein clumping - upen
http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/5559.html
======
smpetrey
My Ecology professor was a great mentor, leader and hilarious guy. He was
super inspirational and taught us that nature was something to marvel at, and
always informed us it was our responsibility to take care of it. He grew up a
farm-hand in the midwest. And likely developed ALS later in life due to
pesticide exposure bioaccumulation. [1]

This is an amazing breakthrough though. Stabilizing the SOD1 could potentially
pave the way for preventing ALS in its early stages. Would this reversal of
protein clumping help patients who have been exposed to pesticides or had head
injuries that lead into ALS?

Also, Please donate to ALS research if you can. [2]

[1] [http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/pesticide-
exposure-...](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/pesticide-exposure-may-
increase-risk-of-a-l-s/)

[2] [http://www.alsa.org/donation](http://www.alsa.org/donation)

~~~
ams6110
From [1]: _“This is an association, not causality,” cautioned the senior
author, Dr. Eva L. Feldman, a professor of neurology at the University of
Michigan. “We found that people with A.L.S. were five times more likely to
have been exposed to pesticides, but we don’t want people to conclude that
pesticides cause A.L.S.”_

There have been a lot of studies that associated things with ALS. None of them
have really held up as a cause. Nor have any treatments really had any
meaningful effect. It's a disease we really don't understand well at all.

My mom died of ALS.

