DURHAM, N.C., July 22 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers are trying to link a location or environmental exposure to 1991 Gulf War veterans with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig's disease.
Marie Lynn Miranda of Duke University layered military records of troop locations onto Gulf-area maps and found some areas of service where there appears to be an association with an elevated risk of ALS.
"There are no reports on the occurrence of ALS among veterans of other conflicts," the researchers said in a statement. "There is only a single report that suggests ALS may arise from environmental exposures associated with military service, per se."
The report's senior author, Ronnie Horner of the University of Cincinnati, led research that found twice-normal ALS rates among veteran of the first Persian Gulf War, reported in an article published in the journal Neurology, in September 2003.
Horner's group is now assessing possible exposures veterans might have had in the Gulf region that could explain the higher ALS rates.
"As one of the largest contemporary set of cases, it presents a real opportunity to identify clues as to the cause of ALS not only for veterans of the first Gulf War but, perhaps, for ALS generally," Horner said in a statement.
Miranda's initial analysis is published online in the journal NeuroToxicology.
