CU Researchers Hope To Find Keys To Pediatric MS
AURORA, Colo. (CBS4)- As many as 10,000 children suffer from multiple sclerosis. Now researchers around the nation have begun a study to find what in their environments and genetics may have triggered a disease at a young age.
Among those researchers, one is based at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.
Jasmine Cisneros, 14, has already joined the study. She was just 10 when she noticed symptoms.
"I couldn't feel half my body then like everything was numb," she explained to CBS4 Health Specialist Kathy Walsh.
And dealing with MS as a teen is tough. "It's different because you don't feel like other teens," Cisneros shared.
Now Dr. Teri Schreiner is joining researchers at 12 other locations to study MS in children.
She hopes to enroll the 50 to 60 kids she sees with MS in the study hunting for the triggers of pediatric MS.
"The genes that you get from your parents as well as the exposures you have early life or perhaps even in pregnancy may contribute to one's risk of getting pediatric MS," Schriener said.
Researchers are hoping to get 640 study participants with pediatric MS and more than 1,200 healthy children.
They need to be between the ages of one and 20. For more information, call (303) 724-6346.
