New Pill to Treat MS Reduces Swelling by 40 Percent
There has been a new pill that currently is undergoing extensive trials that may someday provide an alternate and most welcome treatment for multiple sclerosis. As most treatments for MS today are given as injections. This new pill may someday provide an alternative oral treatment that many Ms patients would surely welcome with open arms.The said pill contains the new drug called laquinimod. The said drug has been able to improve the condition of patients with relapse-emitting MS showing only a few side effects. Multiple sclerosis is an auto-immune disease which is characterized by the destruction of myelin, the insulation tissue surrounding the nerve fibers in the central nervous system by the body’s own immune system. This leads to short circuits in the brain as the nerve cells cannot send the right signals to the brain with damaged myelin. Relapse-emitting MS is one of the most common types of the disease that affects a number of people all over the world.
So far treatments available for relapse-emitting MS requires the drugs to be injected into patients. This can make such treatments very inconvenient for some patients which might lead them not to consider such treatments at all. With laquinimod, patients can now consider another alternative. This time laquinimod come sin a pill that patients may be able to take orally.
In the study, the new pill was given on a daily basis to MS patients and was found to reduce inflammation in the brain caused by MS by as much as 40 percent as compared to a non-active placebo. The said drug has undergone a Phase II trial in 51 centers in nine countries led by Italian expert Professor Giancarlo Comi of the University Vita-Salute in Milan, Italy. In the said trial, 306 MS patients were divided into groups that were given either a placebo or doses of laquinimod. Subsequent brains scans and health checks revealed that those given with the new laquinimod showed fewer brain lesions and reduced swelling by as much as 40 percent than patients had before the said clinical trial.
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Luteolin in Celery Show Promise for MS Treatment
Researchers recently found out that a plant compound found abundant in celery as well as green peppers have the ability to disrupt a key component known to induce an inflammatory response in the brain. A plant flavonoid known as luteolin may be able to reduce the inflammation of the brain, the findings of which may have implications for different research on aging and diseases such as multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s.The researcher from University of Illinois looked at the effect of luteolin on reducing age-related inflammation on the brain and therefore improve brain function or avoid some of the cognitive deficits that may occur during aging. Inflammation on the brain plays a key role in various neurodegeneratrive diseases. It is also considered to be behind the impairments of brain function usually seen as people age.
Luteolin is a plant compound that has been known to prevent the inflammatory response in various types of cells outside the central nervous system. The university of Illinois researchers, headed by animal sciences professor Rodney Johnson, tried to see if it had the same effects on brain cells. The researchers first studied the effects of the plant compound on microglia, a type of glial cell that acts as the primary active immune defense in the central nervous system.
Microglia respond to infection by producing inflammatory cytokines, the chemical messengers acting in the brain to induce a whole body response of fighting the infection. This response is associated with some of the obvious symptoms of illnesses such as fever and lethargy, loss of appetite and temporary memory loss. The inflammation response can also lead some neurons to self-destruct with potentially disastrous consequences.
In the study, the cells were induced to produce an inflammation response and then was exposed to the plant compound luteolin. The cells that were exposed to the plant flavonoid showed a significant reduction in inflammatory response. Luteolin seems to shut down the production of cytokine in the inflammatory pathway called interleukin-6 (IL-6). The exposure resulted in as much as a 90 percent reduction of IL-6 production. This may indicate that luteolin and other bioactive compounds may have a possible role in treating neuroinflammation.
Source: AJC.com
Cancer Drug Shows Promise in MS Treatment
A relatively small study involving the use of a generic cancer drug in treating multiple sclerosis is showing signs of a promising new approach to treating the incurable disease. The promising treatment makes use of the drug cyclophosphamide, which has already been around for over fifty years, as a possible new treatment approach for multiple sclerosis, researchers said.In the said study, a total of nine patients with multiple sclerosis were tracked for two years while taking high doses of the immune suppressing drug cyclophosphamide. Five of the said patients showed no signs of disease activity while the four other patients showed dramatic improvement, according to Dr. Douglas Kerr of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The nine patients in the study were given the generic cancer drug in large doses intravenously.
Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease where the body’s immune system attacks myelin, a fatty substance found in the central nervous system, treating it as a foreign body. The myelin acts as as an insulating shield for the nerve cells in the spine, allowing it to provide effective communication between the brain and the other parts of the body. A damaged myelin sheath can affect electrical signals between the body and the different body parts, resulting in symptoms typical of multiple sclerosis. Such symptoms include, vision problems, coordination and balance difficulties, muscle weakness and fatigue, thinking and memory problems, just to name a few.
The patients included in the study were suffering form relapsing multiple sclerosis, the most common type of MS where patients experience periods of debilitating symptoms followed by periods of remission without showing any of the symptoms. All of the patients in the said study were considered to be the some of the worst cases of multiple sclerosis, with eight of them having no success with all the other treatments and the ninth having no previous treatment for the disease.
After two years of the treatment with cyclophosphamide, the study patients showed an average reduction in disability of about 40 percent. The study group also showed a promising 87 percent improvement during tests to measure mental and physical function. Not only that, brain imaging of the patients also showed that there was a substantial decrease in the average number of brain lesions from 6.5 to 1.2.
The promising results of the study could introduce an advance in the treatment of multiple sclerosis. The researchers aim to start a bigger clinical trial involving other medical centers and a larger number of patients to try out the said treatment approach on a larger scale.
When The Body Reacts Against MS Drugs
Multiple sclerosis is an unpredictable disease that attacks the central nervous system. It can range from a condition that presents mild symptoms or it can be a debilitating disease that can change one’s life drastically. This happens because the communication between the brain and the other parts of the body are being disrupted. This, in turn, is due to the attack carried out by the immune system against myelin, which acts as an insulator to the nerves, the pathway of communication between the brain and the body.The problem that sufferers of multiple sclerosis have yet to know about a cure for what ails them. Doctors today have yet to find or discover a cure for the disease. What treatments are available out there try to relieve or reduce the effects of the symptoms rather than cure the disease. What drugs are now available as of the moment may only help treat a certain function or symptom of multiple sclerosis but would not offer the means to get rid of it. But the treatments do help MS sufferers from being able to live more normal lives than before.
But there are also times when the body tries to react against the drugs used to treat multiple sclerosis. There are some times when the body itself may not be able to work with the drugs aimed to treat multiple sclerosis symptoms. There are times that the body will work against them. This proven to be quite a challenge for doctors since the very drugs that may help treat the disease symptoms may actually not work. It is a good thing that there are now several treatments available that work to treat ms symptoms in different ways. This way when certain drugs do not work effectively to treat the disease symptoms, another type of treatment may be tried out.
It is up to a patient’s doctor to consider alternative treatments in case a current treatment is not working. The treatment should be closely monitored and checked for adverse effects that it might bring to the patient. When the effects seem potentially serious to the MS patient, the treatment should be stopped upon the advice of the doctor. Further tests should be made to make sure that the effects of the previous drug treatment may be the reason for the worsening of the disease. Tests may also be taken to make sure that the next recommended treatment may provide some positive effects to halt the symptoms of multiple sclerosis.
