Massachusetts General Hospital

Biography

Anne-Marie Wills M.D. M.P.H. is a Neurologist specializing in neurodegenerative disease, such as Parkinson's Disease and A.L.S. She received her B.A. from Princeton University, her M.D. from Columbia College Physicians & Surgeons, and her M.P.H. from Harvard School of Public Health. She completed her specialty training in the Partners Neurology residency program, a combined program between Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital. She has been on staff at M.G.H. since 2006.

Her research focuses on environmental risk factors and determinants of neurodegenerative disease progression, including nutrition, caffeine and pesticides. She is currently the Principal Investigator of a multi-center clinical trial funded by the Muscular Dystrophy Association to study the effects of over-feeding A.L.S. (Lou Gehrig's Disease) patients, because both human and animal data show a strong increase in survival from excess calories and body weight. She is also the M.G.H. Investigator on several Parkinson's Disease clinical trials testing therapeutic interventions in P.D.

ResearchDr. Wills is interested in the impact of nutrition on neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease).  She is the Principal Investigator of a multi-center clinical trial investigating the effects of increasing caloric intake in ALS patients.  She is also an investigator with the Parkinson's Study Group and the Net-PD exploratory trials in Parkinson's Disease.

Publications

Wills AM, Plante DT, Dukkipati SR, Corcoran CP, Standaert DG . Pacemaker-induced tachycardia caused by inappropriate response to Parkinsonian tremor . Neurology. 2005;65(10):1676-7.

Wills A-M, Landers JE, Zhang H, Richter RJ, Caraganis A, Cudkowicz ME, Furlong CE, Brown RH Jr1. Paraoxonase 1 (PON1) organophosphate hydrolysis is not reduced in ALS. Neurology. 2008;70(12):929-34.

Landers JE et al. Reduced expression of the Kinesin-Associated Protein 3 (KIFAP3) gene increases survival in sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009;106(22):9004-9.

Wills AM, et al. A large-scale international meta-analysis of paraoxonase gene polymorphisms in sporadic ALS. Neurology. 2009;73(1):16-24.

Haramati S. et al. miRNA malfunction causes spinal motor neuron disease. PNAS, 2010 Jul 20;107(29):13111-6.

Paganoni S; Deng J; Jaffa M; Cudkowicz ME; Wills AM. Body Mass Index, not dyslipidemia, is an independent predictor of survival in ALS, Muscle and Nerve, 2011 Jul;44(1):20-4

Mild obesity appears to improve survival in ALS patients

Patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) may be an exception to the rule that being overweight is a health hazard. In a retrospective study of over 400 ALS patients, MGH researchers found that those who were mildly obese survived longer than patients who were normal weight, underweight or even overweight.