High Cholesterol Diet may Help Patients With Fatal Genetic Disease

A new study published in the journal Nature Medicine has revealed that switching to a high cholesterol diet may help patients suffering from a fatal genetic disorder called Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease. Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease (PMD) is a genetic disorder in which the patients are not able to produce a fatty sheath, called myelin, around the nerves which is essential for their function. Myelin sheath protects the nerve fibers and also helps in passing on messages along the nerves and absence of this sheath could lead to movement and cognition problems.

Researchers at Max Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine, in Germany, have found that a high cholesterol diet may help PMD patients after they found that it increased the production of myelin sheath, though it did not cure the disease.

“Dietary cholesterol does not cure PMD, but has a striking potential to relieve defects. This six-week-long cholesterol treatment delayed the decline in motor co-ordination”, the researchers said.


Source-Medindia