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Showing posts with the label Washington Post health news

Huntington’s Disease Breakthrough: How New Treatments and Better Sleep Could Change the Future

Huntington’s disease is bleakly characterized as ‘the cruelest disease known to man,’ and it has been so described for decades. Families usually passed down the Huntington’s gene while knowing that nothing could halt the disease’s persistent course. Generations all lived with a heavy certainty that it was all over when the symptoms started to manifest themselves through jerking movements, lapses of memory, changes of mood. The illness would progress, and treatments only alleviated some discomfort. This is why the news recently struck such a powerful chord that there is hope for successful therapy. A recent experimental treatment made breakthrough results , and the progression of Huntington’s disease was slowed down in a clinical trial. It was the first time scientists could identify tangible evidence that the progression of the disease could be interrupted. Although this is not a comprehensive cure, the results are a milestone whereby hope will replace inevitability, and come with the...