Potentially negative side-effect of Minocycline et al

[bil]

I came across this potentially negative effect of minocycline et al today :

The study authors conclude that it is very likely that minocycline's neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory effects are due to PARP-1 inhibition.

"This doesn't exclude the possibility that it has other actions," says Swanson, "but as far as we can tell, the only way it blocks inflammation is by blocking PARP-1."

Swanson says the results have implications beyond the general principle that "it helps to know how a drug is working."

One is potentially negative. "In blocking PARP-1, you block DNA repair," he cautions. "That will likely be true of minocycline. And in blocking DNA repair you conceivably increase the risk of cancer. In clinical trials where people are taking minocycline for months at a time, I think that investigators need to take this into consideration – although for someone with a serious neurodegenerative disease like ALS, it could be a reasonable tradeoff. But you want to have your eyes open."

from : http://www.hdlighthouse.org/research/dr ... parp-1.php

Anyone know any more about this????

[SarahLonglands]

No, but I was taking doxycycline minocycline's younger and gentler sister as an antibiotic, to get rid of an infection which some medical people feel to be the cause of MS. As well as halting my MS in its tracks and giving me a lot of improvement, it has made me so damned healthy in other respects that I doubt that I have ended up more likely to get cancer.

Also, if you type in doxycycline and cancer on this page from pubmed, you will see much work going on with decreasing the illness in cancer patients:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... &DB=pubmed

To be fair, regarding you previous question as to which drug was preferable, there is quite a lot of research going on with minocycline as well, type in minocycline and cancer:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... &DB=pubmed

Sarah

[tory2457]

Hi bil,

I really do like your questions....very valid questions. I'm tired and didn't open the link Sarah provided (tomorrow's chore) but I bet it has something to do with the connection of cancer and inflammation? My doc and I had a brief talk about the research on those 2.

anyway, I agree with Sarah, I too am feeling sooooo much better since I started taking antibiotics for my MS. Heck, steroids are known to be detrimental to us, but what else did we have?

no more of those for me....it's the food supply for my bacteria!

I'm not blind to the thought of Mino and other abx being a powerful drug, but kids with pimples take antibiotics for years, and they give small tykes antibiotics for ear infections, so

like Sarah, I'll take those chances.

Hope you find your way,
tory