Creatine being pursued for Parkinson's Disease

[rrgg]

http://www.nih.gov/news/radio/mar2006/03172006pd.htm


Preliminary Study Shows Creatine and Minocycline Warrant Further Study in Parkinson's Disease
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Brief Description:
A National Institutes of Health sponsored clinical trial with 200 Parkinson's disease patients has shown that the over-the-counter supplement creatine and the antibiotic minocycline warrant further study in a large trial.
Transcript:
Schmalfeldt: A National Institutes of Health sponsored clinical trial with 200 Parkinson's disease patients has shown that the over-the-counter supplement creatine and the antibiotic minocycline warrant further study in a large trial. Doctor Diane D. Murphy, extramural program director for Parkinson's disease at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke said these agents have interested medical investigators as they may have antioxidant properties.
Murphy: The studies we did so far were aimed at identifying drugs that would be worth pursuing in large scale clinical trials. So, in other words, the studies were aimed at eliminating those drugs that didn't meet the bar or shouldn't go into larger clinical trials. These drugs passed the bar and hopefully NINDS will be investing in larger trials soon.
Schmalfeldt: Study investigators caution that while the news is encouraging, the results don't demonstrate that these agents are effective in treating Parkinson's disease. Before these interventions can be recommended as a treatment, they must be tested in a larger trial with hundreds of patients. The study was published in the March 14 issue of Neurology. From the National Institutes of Health, I'm Bill Schmalfeldt in Bethesda, Maryland.

 

[Pitbull954]

Very interesting my grandmother has Parkinson's I hope they do a larger study SOON.

 

[Gumbo]

Good article. My grandfather had Parkinson's really bad and it ended up crippling him before he died.

I've read other articles saying that l-dopa helps as well.

Gumbo

 

[Sooty]

L-dopa studies in the past forty years showed that after extended use, the dosage had to be jacked up in large quantities due to the body tolerating higher than normal amounts of synthetic dopamine. Eventually the patients were given so much L-dopa they just went into sporadic convulsions.

Unless these problems have been cleared up recently, I dont believe l-dopa is going to be of much help to these patients..

Id go with stem cell research, i think it has a better chance.

 

[BHERTZ]

I work at Vitamin World and we get daily memos - one of the memos we received about 3 weeks ago was creatine + another vitamin (i forget which one) was supposed to be awesome for the treatment of this disease. lets see where the research goes!