If you have Lou Gehrig's disease, you are undoubtedly already under the care of a doctor. It's really important not to engage in nutritional experimentation on your own, because your physical response to large doses of vitamins and minerals should be monitored closely. A Potentially Radical Solution Theoretical astrophysicist Stephen Hawking is in his third decade of a disease that kills most people in five years. It's a disease in which nerve cells of the spine and the lower part of the brain are killed off little by little. The result is a progressive muscle weakness that affects the limbs, trunk, breathing muscles, throat and tongue.
Sense of touch remains normal, as do the bladder, the bowel and sexual function.
Intellect is not affected. Currently, there is no treatment. But there is one therapy being studied that holds out some hope for the future. And that therapy involves vitamin E and other nutrients. Antioxidants are substances that mop up the maverick molecules, sometimes called free radicals, that are set loose in the body like a bull in a china shop by normal, everyday body processes.