What is ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease? ALS stands for Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
A-myo-trophic comes from the Greek language. “A” means no or negative. “Myo” refers to muscle, and “Trophic” means nourishment. Thus, “No muscle nourishment.” When a muscle has no nourishment, it “atrophies” or wastes away. “Lateral” identifies the areas in a person’s spinal cord where portions of the nerve cells that signal and control the muscles are located. As this area degenerates it leads to scarring or hardening (“sclerosis”) in the region.
Seventy-five years after Gehrig’s historic speech, the disease that now bears his name still has no known cure.
