Multiple Sclerosis or MS is a debilitating disease marked by the body’s immune system attacking the protective layering around the nerves. This causes a disruption between the brain and the rest of the body, resulting in pain, loss of vision and impaired motor function and researchers might finally know why it persevered for so long.
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00:00 Multiple Sclerosis or MS is a debilitating disease marked by the body's immune system
00:08 attacking the protective layering around the nerves.
00:11 This causes a disruption between the brain and the rest of the body, resulting in pain,
00:16 loss of vision and impaired motor function.
00:18 Researchers have long known that a gene variant that increases the risk of MS was three times
00:22 higher amongst northern Europeans, but no one knew why or how it was passed along.
00:27 However, using recent DNA sequences from ancient genomes from tens of thousands of years of
00:31 human history, they might finally have an idea.
00:35 Researchers discovered that the gene first entered Europe from a region including Ukraine,
00:39 southwest Russia and west Kazakhstan.
00:41 They discovered that the MS gene was positively selected wherever it went, which means it
00:45 likely had some form of utility despite the disease's eventual debilitation.
00:50 The best guess is that because MS is the result of an overactive immune system, it likely
00:54 protected humans with the gene by preventing other illnesses that would have killed them
00:58 at a much younger age.
00:59 With one of the researchers, neuroimmunologist Lars Fugger saying about it, "This means we
01:04 can now understand and seek to treat MS for what it actually is, the result of a genetic
01:09 adaptation to certain environmental conditions that occurred back in our prehistory."
01:15 - Lars Fugger, MS Geology and Biotechnology Research Center, University of California,
01:18 California Institute of Technology.
01:19 - Lars Fugger, MS Geology and Biotechnology Research Center, University of California,