After being diagnosed with MS, he started running marathons. It's helping reverse the disease's progression.
CBSN
When Derek Stefureac was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a chronic disease that affects the central nervous system, he was a smoker who never exercised.
Everything changed when he had an "attack" at work when he was 39: His body seized for about a minute, and Stefureac told CBS News that he "thought he was dying." After seeing multiple doctors, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
"It was a pretty scary diagnosis, and I wasn't even sure what it was, to be honest. I didn't know anyone who had it," Stefureac, now 51, said. "As I learned more, a doctor said, 'It's a progressive disease, it's incurable. We have some therapies to slow down the progression, but the best thing you can do is get healthy. A healthy body is the best tool.' So that scared me enough to quit smoking, and as part of quitting smoking, to help me out and get healthy, I just started jogging."
