Obviously such a breakthrough could be of enormous importance for MS patients. My husband is in the Military and we are stationed in El Paso, Texas. The summers are very hot and make me feel very sluggish and I feel dysfunctional by the end of the day. Heat exposure tends to cause physiologic dysfunction in MS, causing transient block in conduction of nerve traffic. This relates to the person's core body temperature.
Many patients feel that heat plus humidity is more enervating than heat alone.
Overheating relates to conduction block in the central nervous system as core body temperature is raised with fever or infection. Although many patients with MS report being heat sensitive, a surprising proportion are not. There's not a lot of evidence that MS progresses faster in warmer climates, though it is true that people as a whole live longer in colder climates. It's easy to unmask areas that have been damaged by prior episodes and are poorly myelinated or unmyelinated. This is not new disease, it's unmasking areas of potential conduction block.