More good news. This story is about a new clinical trial being launched to study if pioglitazone (who names these drugs?), an ORAL drug commonly used to treat Type II diabetes, can be useful for MS. In animal trials (which we all know by now are not guaranteed to reflect the human model), it has shown results that make researchers think it will be very useful in MS. The only "downside" is that this first phase trial is scheduled for a duration of 18 months, so we will not know the results for a very long time. That makes 3 oral, readily-available drugs (Minocycline, Statins, and now Pioglitazone) that are showing great promise for MS in just the last month. Are the days of all approved MS therapies requiring injections/IVs numbered? We think so.

"Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago are launching a clinical trial to determine whether a drug commonly used for diabetes [pioglitazone] might be effective in treating multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease that affects 350,000 Americans...

Research has shown that drugs like pioglitazone not only raise the levels of certain proteins involved in the uptake and metabolism of glucose but also lower the levels of other molecules involved in the immune response and inflammation.

'It is amazing that this drug, at least in animal tests, has shown a dramatic effect on two different targets of multiple sclerosis, namely the immune system and the inflammation process,' Feinstein said."

Click "read more" to get the full, hopeful, story...