Minocycline is an oral antibiotic that is now showing great promise as a possible MS therapy that is easy to administer, affordable, and most important-- potentially effective. Along with the below article, there are a number of posts about minocycline in the Forums section of our site; do your research and while this research is very early, have hope that a readily-available drug could be very useful for MS.
"What makes minocycline even more exciting is that it is taken orally, eliminating the need for injections. And it costs only $80 a month, instead of thousands of dollars a month for other MS drugs.
The Calgary researchers made their findings after following 10 patients with the most common type of MS, called "relapsing-remitting." The disease brings on attacks in patients through lesions in the brain or spinal tissues.
The researchers found that minocycline substantially reduced the activity of the lesions by blocking the tissue from developing."
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Acne drug may control MS, Calgary scientists say
CTV.ca News Staff
They're being cautious about the results, but researchers at the University of Calgary think they've found a drug that can help control multiple sclerosis.
Minocycline is a prescription antibiotic that is usually used to treat acne. But the Calgary study found the medication can also reduce the frequency of MS attacks.
Donna Smith, 46, has dealt with MS since the age of 18, a disease of the central nervous system that cause loss of balance, impaired speech, extreme fatigue, and paralysis. She used to have a couple of attacks a year of numbness in her lower extremities. Then she started taking minocycline two years ago.
"I haven't had an MS attack since I've been on the medication," she says.
What makes minocycline even more exciting is that it is taken orally, eliminating the need for injections. And it costs only $80 a month, instead of thousands of dollars a month for other MS drugs.
The Calgary researchers made their findings after following 10 patients with the most common type of MS, called "relapsing-remitting." The disease brings on attacks in patients through lesions in the brain or spinal tissues.
The researchers found that minocycline substantially reduced the activity of the lesions by blocking the tissue from developing.
The researchers caution that a study on 10 patients does not mean the drug will work for all patients. Larger scale studies are still needed, but they remain hopeful.
"At this time, it's a major promise for MS," says the University of Calgary's Dr. Luanne Metz. "We need to confirm that it works, and that's where we're going right now."
The next step is to determine whether combining the drug with Copaxone, a more traditional MS medication, would make it even more effective.
That's good news for Canadians, who have one of the highest rates of multiple sclerosis in the world, as do other countries far from the equator.
Multiple sclerosis most often strikes adults between the ages of 20 to 40. The average age of diagnosis is 30, and women are almost twice as likely to develop it as men, though researchers don't know why.
Original article can be found here
