DETROIT, February 4, 1999 - The long suspected role of autoimmunity in multiple sclerosis has been greatly strengthened by a study reported in the current issue of Nature Medicine (February 1998) that was conducted by University of California San Francisco scientists, in collaboration with investigators at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in New York City.

      Autoimmunity, which is the underlying cause of more than 80 chronic diseases, such as lupus, type one diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis, occurs when the body immune cells produce antibodies that attack one own tissue. Autoantibodies may play a direct role in the development of autoimmune diseases.

      The fact that MS now can be categorized as an autoimmune disease is just one more reason why we need more funding earmarked for basic research into autoimmunity,@ said Virginia T. Ladd, president of the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association (AARDA). AThese findings -- or any findings related to an autoimmune disease -- may be very useful in finding a cure for all autoimmune diseases.

      Ms. Ladd said that it time we look at all autoimmune diseases as a group the same way we study all types of cancer in cancer research.

      In the case of multiple sclerosis, it has been thought that autoantibodies played a very minor role in the destruction of myelin, a membranous sheath that surrounds and protects the nerve fibers in the brain. The new finding suggest that the suspicion of blame, currently resting on the immune system T cells, which produce such chemical weapons as cytokines, should extend to B cells, which produce antibodies.

      We determined that these antibodies were bound to their target in myelin as the membrane was in the process of being disintegrated,@ said the lead author of the study, Claude Genain, M.D., an assistant professor of neurology at UCSF. AThis is direct evidence that the antibody plays an integral role in the formation of the ruptured myelin sheath.@

      Studying multiple sclerosis as an immune mediated disease may open to MS patients areas of research that have been under investigation in other autoimmune diseases. The possibility of a new target for drug therapy for the intermittent, generally progressive neurologic disorder is significantly enhanced by these findings.

      One therapeutic answer for the disease surely lies in blocking autoimmune cells before they can attack the myelin sheath, said Genain. For it is in the progressive splitting and swelling of the myelin sheath that the disruption begins, causing inflammation in the surrounding area, destroying nerve-impulse conducting myelin and, ultimately, displacing the axons themselves, causing sporadic, then progressive, neurological impairments including paralysis of the limbs and visual problems.

      Research into this area will help us understand how and why the immune system mounts an attack on the self resulting in autoimmune disease, said Noel R. Rose, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Pathology and Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Johns Hopkins University, and chairman of AARDA medical advisory committee. AAlthough these diseases are widely diverse in their anatomical location and their clinical manifestations, they all have the same etiology or cause.

      According to the AARDA, approximately 50 million Americans, 20 percent of the population or one in five people suffers from autoimmune diseases. Of these, the majority are women; some estimates say that 75 percent of those affected -- some 30 million people -- are women.

      AARDA is the nation only organization dedicated to raising awareness of the early warning signs of autoimmune diseases, bringing a national focus to autoimmunity as a major health issue, and promoting a collaborative effort among researchers in order to find a cure for all autoimmune diseases.

      For more information, visit AARDA website www.aarda.org