The “exciting” clinical results offer hope in a new category of MS treatments | Multiple stiffness
Early results from a clinical trial indicate that the common diabetes medicine that is taken with antihistamines can partially repair damage to the nervous system that causes disability in multiple sclerosis.
While the effect was very small for patients to notice benefit after six months, the tests revealed improvements in nerve function, which raises hopes that the damage to the protective paint around the neuron to the drugs be reversed.
“I feel that we are in a new category of treatments for multiple sclerosis and this is why this is exciting,” said Dr. Nick Conny, a neurologist at the University of Cambridge who led the CCMR trial.
Nearly 3 million people around the world live with multiple sclerosis and there are more than 150,000 patients in the UK. Most of them are diagnosed in the thirties and forties. It is the most common nervous condition in young people.
The disease arises when the immune system attacks the protective fatty coating around the nerves in the brain and spinal cord. The loss of this myelin fainting slows down the electrical signals that pass through the nerves or prevent them from reaching them completely.
The first symptoms tend to tingling, numbness, loss of balance problems and vision, but because other diseases cause similar diseases, the final diagnosis can take some time.
Many patients begin to relapse multiple sclerosis, as the symptoms come and go because the muds of the metal around their nerves were damaged, repaired and damaged again. Others have a gradual form. The body can no longer repair damaged myelin and neurons dies steadily. This prompts progressive deficit and symptoms such as tremors, speech problems, muscle stiffness and cramps. In time, patients may need to help walk or a wheelchair.
In the past decade, scientists have found that antihistamines called Clemotastine have the ability to do so Activating the mechanisms of repairing milligors in the body It may prevent gradual nerve damage. But its effectiveness is unclear. the Rebuilding the trial At the University of California, San Francisco, I found that although Kalimaastin improved the nerve function, the effect was very small.
CCMR Two Trial, funded by the MS Association More search Which showed metformin, diabetes, Cleemstin’s effect may enhance.
The Cambridge experience employed 70 people with a relapse of multiple sclerosis. It took half of Clemastin and Metformin and the half of the imaginary medicine got for six months. To assess the effect on nerves, researchers measured the speed of electrical signals between the eyes and the brain. This was slower than the usual patients in the experiment due to the damage of the myelin and inflammation around the optic nerve.
While medications seemed to enhance the nerve function, there was no improvement in the vision or disability of patients. Electrical signals traveled faster in people over the drug more than a placebo, but only 1.3 millimeters.
“It is smaller than we were hoping for,” said Confi, who described the work of the European Committee for Treatment and Research on Multiple Sclerosis in Barcelona on Friday.
“My conclusion is that the drugs have a biological effect to enhance rehabilitation, but we need to be clear that people do not feel better in these drugs for six months.”
“This is a positive evidence of concept results and we would like to see them.
“We don’t expect them to have a clinical benefit in just six months. This will take a longer time.”
The researchers emphasized that people should not try to obtain medicines outside a clinical trial as they are still evaluated. In the Cambridge experience, many patients have suffered fatigue from klemasin and diarrhea from metformin. The drug that holds nerves that do not regenerate the nerves that have already died.
Jonah Chan, a professor of neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco, who worked in the rebuilding experience, said that finding drugs for re -storage of nerves is very important.
He said: “I am more convinced than ever that reinstallation is the critical way to prevent permanent disability in multiple nerve sclerosis. It is also the only immediate hope for restoring the job, although people should be realistic in the contexts that you can recover.”
“We need to use everything we have learned during the past decade of hard work and the ritual in order to follow scientific compounds and verify experimental health from the laboratory to see if they are already working in people. We need to be inspired by optimism, but we are comfortable to learn from the setbacks.”