Lorenzo's Oil vindicated at last

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Lorenzo's oil finally proven to work

 

17:55 26 September 02

 

NewScientist.com news service

 

The controversial do-it-yourself medicine that inspired the

heart-rending movie Lorenzo's Oil has finally been proved to work.

The new research ends years of uncertainty about the treatment and

demolishes the claims of experts who repeatedly said it was a

worthless quack remedy.

 

New Scientist has learned that Hugo Moser, the neurologist and doctor

played by Peter Ustinov in the film, will on Saturday unveil the

positive conclusions of a 10-year investigation into the oil's

effects on a group of boys affected with the same genetic condition

as Lorenzo.

 

Normally carriers of the genetic defect are at high risk of

developing adrenoleukodystrophy, causing them to progressively lose

the ability to move, hear, speak and - finally - breathe. Some

victims, like Lorenzo Odone portrayed in the film, get the childhood

form which usually kills within just two years. Others get the adult

form of the disease, which strikes people in their late twenties and

acts more slowly.

 

The new study shows that the boys whose parents scrupulously

administered the oil - often in the face of scepticism from the

medical establishment - were much less likely to go on to develop

symptoms in childhood than boys who did not get the oil on a regular

basis.

 

Boys carrying the defect have extremely high levels of very long

chain saturated fatty acids in their blood. The oil brings these

levels back down to normal in a way that can be tested, and this

enabled the researchers to monitor which boys were getting the

treatment on a regular basis.

 

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992851