Diabetes and multiple sclerosis

Diabetes drug shows promise in multiple sclerosis

A FDA-approved drug used in diabetes shows some protective effects in the brains of patients with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis.

Feinstein, at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and colleagues came to this conclusion after a small, double-blinded clinical trial including 21 patients with so-called "relapsing-remitting" MS who were randomly assigned to take 30 milligrams of pioglitazone daily or an inactive "placebo". Pioglitazone is a drug known technically as Actos which is known anti-inflammatory effects and is normally used to treat type-2 diabetes.

Standard neurological tests and MRI were done initially to provide baseline values and patients were then evaluated every two months during one year. Patients taking the drug showed significantly less loss of gray matter over the course of the one-year trial than patients taking placebo. Another positive observation was that no adverse reactions were found in the group taking pioglitazone.

The class of drugs that includes pioglitazone is currently being tested by several different labs around the world, in other neurological diseases including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's diseases, ALS, and stroke.

This result was reported in the May 26, 2009 issue of the Journal of Neuroimmunology.