ALS is an incurable neuromuscular disorder affecting approximately 1 in every 1,000 people during their lifetime. The life expectancy is between 3 and 5 years from onset of symptoms, and is diagnosed after all other possible causes have been ruled out.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, named after the New York Yankees star first baseman and one of the greatest baseball players of all time. Nicknamed "The Iron Horse," ALS forced Gehrig to retire at 36 and caused his death just two years later.
Motor neurons are the nerve cells that transfer the signal from your brain to your voluntary muscles. In ALS, these motor neurons die, breaking the signal and resulting in atrophy of the affected muscles. As the disease progresses, one loses the ability to walk, move, speak, eat, and even breathe.
Sporadic ALS is random and is by far the most prevalent form of ALS observed. Familial ALS is a fraction of ALS cases, and is hereditary. Each child of one carrying one of the defective genes responsible for FALS has a 50% likelihood of inheriting the gene.
Currently, there is no cure for ALS and no effective treatment to halt, or reverse, the progression of the disease. Most people with ALS die from respiratory failure, usually within 3 to 5 years from when the symptoms first appear.
Promising treatments utilizing stem cell therapy and gene editing are in various phases of clinical trial, but there is still a lot of work to do to understand ALS and identify all the genes responsible for FALS.