Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a devastating neurodegenerative disease that affects about 1 in 50,000 people. Well-known people who suffered from ALS include baseball player Lou Gehrig, who lived two years after he was diagnosed, and scientist Stephen Hawking, who lived for an extraordinary 55 years after his diagnosis. While the severity and speed of disease progression vary from person to person, most people with ALS die within two to five years after diagnosis. No effective therapy currently exists.
Little is known about what causes or increases someone’s risk of developing ALS. Researchers think it’s only around 50% genetic, indicating that there are strong environmental and lifestyle risk factors affecting disease development. But very few of these risk factors have been identified.
