History of Lou Gehrig's Disease

Significance

• Lou Gehrig's Disease, otherwise known as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or ALS, is named after Lou Gehrig, a baseball player for the New York Yankees. In 1939, Gehrig was diagnosed with the condition, making him the most well-known ALS patient and raising awareness of the condition. Tragically, Gehrig died from the disease two year later, in 1941, at the age of thirty-seven. Stephen Hawking, world-renowned physicist, is now considered the best-known living patient of the disease.
  
  

Function

• Lou Gehrig's Disease is a neurodegeneraitive disease caused by degeneration of the motor neurons. The motor neurons are nerve cells in the central nervous system, and these neurons control voluntary muscle movement. Symptoms of Lou Gehrig's Disease include muscle weakness and atrophy throughout the body. This occurs as the upper and lower motor neurons begin to degenerate and cease sending messages to the muscles. Because the muscles are unable to function, they begin to gradually weaken, twitch and become immobile. A patient generally loses the ability to initiate and control all movement, although most patients retain control of their bladders, bowel sphincters and the muscles responsible for eye movement.
  
  

Earliest Research on ALS

• The first known research of ALS occurred in 1850, when English scientist Augustus Waller detailed the appearance of shriveled nerve fibers in cadavers. In 1869, a French doctor named Jean-Martin Charcot was the first to describe the disease in writing in a work titled "On Amotrophic Lateral Scierosis." Twelve years later, in 1881, Charcot's findings were translated into English and published in a three-volume edition of "Lectures on the Disease of the Nervous System." In 1939, baseball legend Lou Gehrig was diagnosed with the condition; he died two years later. Due to the popularity surrounding Gehrig, the disease became known in the United States and Canada as Lou Gehrig's Disease. In the 1950s, scientists noted an epidemic of the condition among the Chamorro people, a native tribe of Guam.
  
  

More Recent Findings on Lou Gehrig's Disease

• In 1991, scientists found a link between chromosome 21 to FALS, or the familial condition and possible genetic predisposition to Lou Gehrig's Disease. Two years later, in 1993, researchers found that the SOD1 gene, located on chromosome 21, seemed to play a role in some cases of FALS. In 1996, the FDA approved Rilutek, the first medication for Lou Gehrig's Disease. In 1998, a procedure called El Escorial was developed to confirm cases of Lou Gehrig's Disease. In 2001, researchers determined that the Alsin gene located on chromosome 2 was responsible for causing a variation of the condition, called ALS2.
  
  

Famous Lou Gehrig's Disease Patients

• Many notable patients of Lou Gehrig's Disease have helped garner further attention and medical research to the disease. In addition to baseball legend Lou Gehrig, American guitarist and composed Jason Becker, American artist Tucker Stilley (otherwise known as "New Jack Rasputin") and American musician Eric Lowen (of Lowen and Navarro) have all suffered from Lou Gehrig's Disease. American football stars Orlando Thomas and O.J. Brigance have also suffered from the condition, as has Italian soccer player Stefano Borgonovo and American politician Scott LeDoux. Jon Stone, the creator of Sesame Street, also suffered from Lou Gehrig's Disease before his death.