Lou Gehrig's Disease Research Papers

Lou Gehrig once said, “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” It is awe inspiring that he can feel this way in the face of one of the most lethal diseases of our current era. This is a different disease than aids, hiv, or malaria this disease attacks the nervous system and slowly destroys the person. Lou Gehrig loaded the bases and set the stage by becoming the first public figure to have ALS. ALS or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a disease of the neurological system. Because it is part of the neurological system, it is complex and mysterious disease. ALS is a disease that continues to puzzle scientists with its many aspects: the disease itself, the history of the disease, the current treatments, and the future of the cure.

ALS, otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a disease that results in the continuous degeneration of muscle structure. Although the cause of the sickness is unknown, someone who’s parents had it are more likely to contract the disease than anyone else. About half of all ALS patients 18 months after diagnosis, while only 10 percent live longer than ten years. People can live for many years with

The first scientist to discover ALS was a french scientist named Jean-Martin Charcot in 1869. Scientists estimate it strikes around 5,000 people in the United States a year and they have deemed there is no cure for it. “ALS usually strikes people between the ages of 40 and 70, and approximately 20,000 Americans can have the disease at any given time.”(ALS Association) Popular scientist Stephen Hawking learned he had ALS when he was 21 and has been living with it ever since. Stephen Hawking is an anomaly of what ALS does to a person and from him we have learned a lot about the neurological disease. There is still much more we can not only learn about ALS, but about the brain