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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast

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Speaker 1: from News Talks that Be.

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Speaker 2: What's Really Sad and Scary news. Former England rugby captain

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Speaker 2: Lewis Moody has been diagnosed with motor neuron disease. So

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Speaker 2: he's just forty seven years old. But we wanted a

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Speaker 2: bit more information about MND and so doctor Brian Betty

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Speaker 2: is here with us this morning. Cal to Brian, oh

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Speaker 2: Kiral Jack, what actually is motor neuron disease.

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Speaker 3: It's what we call a neurological disorder. So it's a

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Speaker 3: progressive nerve disease. So basically what hammered happens. It damages

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Speaker 3: and kills nerve cells, especially in the spinal cord and

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Speaker 3: the brain, that control muscle movement in the body. So

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Speaker 3: in effect, what happens is the nerve cells are damaged

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Speaker 3: and the brain can no longer connect or send signals

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Speaker 3: through to the muscles in the body, and the muscles

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Speaker 3: slowly lose the ability to function. So it's a devastating

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Speaker 3: disease and with with with lots and lots of implications

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Speaker 3: when it occurs.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, why does it occur?

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Speaker 3: Well, look, it's one of those things very familiar to

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Speaker 3: us in medicine that the exact cause is not fully understood.

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Speaker 3: So it's thought to be up to ten percent of

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Speaker 3: maybe genetic related and that is the person's genes or

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Speaker 3: family history drive it, but ninety percent are thought to

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Speaker 3: be random with really no clear genetic cause. Now we

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Speaker 3: think there are several things that could be important. One

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Speaker 3: is an abnormal accumulation approacheing in the nerve cells, which

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Speaker 3: destroy them. There's possibly an inflammatory response that is the

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Speaker 3: immune system malfunction where the immune system turns on itself

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Speaker 3: and destroys the nerve cells. The other thing that's been

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Speaker 3: wondered about is whether there's environmental factors. So there's been

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Speaker 3: some linkage to things like heavy metals and pesticides, but

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Speaker 3: again there's no real clear evidence that that's in fact

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Speaker 3: the case. So not well understood.

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Speaker 2: And even for Lewis Moody, I mean, my immediate reaction

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Speaker 2: was as this as a result of being in a

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Speaker 2: in a really physical contact sport for a long time.

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Speaker 2: But even that evidence seemed to be mixed at the moment,

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Speaker 2: so that you can't sort of directly draw line necessarily

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Speaker 2: just on that.

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Speaker 3: Yet, Yeah, it would be very very hard to draw

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Speaker 3: a direct line with that to this condition. So yeah, no, no, yeah,

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Speaker 3: very very poorly understood.

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Speaker 2: Well what are the symptoms.

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Speaker 3: Well, the problem is that initially it is incredibly difficult

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Speaker 3: to diagnose because there are very very subtle changes that occur.

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Speaker 3: So this may be a slight clumsiness in the hands,

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Speaker 3: slurred speech, or fatigue or tiredness, so that those are

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Speaker 3: pretty nondescript. But as time goes on, the main issue

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Speaker 3: that tends to develop is weakness in the arms and

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Speaker 3: legs and hands, and you gradually lose your ability to

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Speaker 3: use them. Now, speech and swallowing can become very very difficult,

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Speaker 3: so speech, the power of speech, you start to lose that,

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Speaker 3: and in particular breathing problems as the muscles around the

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Speaker 3: lungs weaken, and that can lead to increased lung infections.

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Speaker 3: You moon is things like that which can be very

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Speaker 3: very difficult. The other thing is mood swings, so depression

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Speaker 3: and can become a pronounced feature of it as well.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, which is which is understandable. I mean, I mean

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Speaker 2: many of us will associate mode of neuron disease with

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Speaker 2: Stephen Hawking, but Kenny treated it all.

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Speaker 3: Unfortunately, it's incurable. So once a diagnosis has made there

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Speaker 3: isn't any real treatments available. Stephen Hawkins was actually very,

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Speaker 3: very unusual. So he was diagnosed at the age of

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Speaker 3: twenty two, but he actually died at the age of

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Speaker 3: seventy six. Because the average time from diagnosis to death

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Speaker 3: is two to five years. Wow, So Stephen Hawkins was

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Speaker 3: incredibly unusual in terms of what happened and again not

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Speaker 3: not understood. It was thought to be just a slower

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Speaker 3: variant of the disease. There are some experimental drugs that

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Speaker 3: medical science is playing around with, but again there's nothing

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Speaker 3: really that's been landed on at this point. So most

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Speaker 3: of the treatment tends to be supportive that, you know,

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Speaker 3: trying to improve the quality of life. And I think

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Speaker 3: Stephen Hawkins he had motorized wheelchair, he was able to

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Speaker 3: communicate through a through a language translator and things. So

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Speaker 3: again it's it's it's quality of life that becomes a

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Speaker 3: critical thing as time goes on.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, oh man, it's just such sad news about Lewis Moody.

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Speaker 2: But thank you very much for that. We really appreciate

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Speaker 2: your time and expertise. As always, Doctor Brian Betty with

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Speaker 2: us This Morning.

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