Actress Christina Applegate announced her multiple sclerosis diagnosis via Twitter. Applegate said she has been "so supported" by others with the condition, which affects the central nervous system.
Multiple sclerosis, or MS, is a condition that affects the myelin sheath, a material that covers nerve cells in the body.
When the myelin sheath is damaged, communication between the brain and the rest of the body can be interrupted, resulting in symptoms such as muscle weakness, numbness, visual loss, tremor, and more.
Most diagnoses occur in people aged in their 20s and 30s but it can develop at any age. Women tend to get it more often than men do.
The disease can often be mild, according to MedlinePlus, a health information service run by the U.S. National Library of Medicine. However, some people with the condition may get more severe symptoms and experience issues with mobility or speech.
Symptoms can also appear and disappear over certain periods and relapses may be followed by quiet periods potentially lasting years.
MS that comes and goes in this way is called relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, and it's thought that 90 percent of patients will have this form of the disease at the time of diagnosis, according to the Johns Hopkins Medicine medical school. Other patients find that their symptoms gradually get worse, either after a period of relapse and remission or from the start.
The Mayo Clinic, a U.S. medical center, states multiple sclerosis is considered an autoimmune disease, meaning the body's immune system may be the cause of the nerve damage.
However, the cause of the disease is unknown and it's not clear why multiple sclerosis develops in some people and not in others. Genetics and environment may play a part.
People with a family history of MS are at an elevated risk of developing it. It is also more common in white people than in people of other races and is more common in temperate climates, according to the Mayo Clinic. Having low levels of vitamin D is also associated with elevated MS risk.
There is currently no cure for the disease, but a number of treatments are available that can help control symptoms and these have considerably improved the quality of life for people that live with it over the years. Research is ongoing.
The U.K.'s National Health Service (NHS) states that MS can be treated with short courses of steroids to help speed up recovery. A type of medicine called disease-modifying therapies can also be used to reduce the number of relapses in people who have that type of MS. MS is rarely fatal itself, though complications may arise, the NHS states.
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