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According to an American study carried out on mice, lisinopril, an antihypertensive enzyme inhibitor, could block or even reverse the paralyzing effects of multiple sclerosis (MS). Promising results for hundreds of thousands of patients, although of course we must wait for the results of more extensive studies in humans.
Lisinopril, what is this treatment for hypertension (high blood pressure)?
There SEP affects around 110,000 people in France. THE MS treatments are complex and much therapeutic research is taking place to help patients. This is the case of a study concerning a medicine for high blood pressure.
American professor Lawrence Steinmann, neurologist and researcher at Stanford University, suggests in a study published on August 17 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that a An inexpensive antihypertensive drug with no side effects, lisinopril (marketed in France under the name Zestril®), could help relieve paralysis that is already present or prevent its development in the case of multiple sclerosis (MS).
In any case, this is what the experiment carried out by Professor Steinmann and his team on mice in which brain lesions similar to those of multiple sclerosis (MS) were caused. After administration of lisinopril, the paralyzed mice were no longer paralyzed! As for able-bodied mice, administration of this drug prevented the occurrence of paralysis due to multiple sclerosis (MS).
Furthermore, according to the ARSEP (Foundation for Research Support on MS), other pathologies are more frequently associated with multiple sclerosis. These include, among others, depression, diabetes, epilepsy and even hypertension. Depression is the pathology most often associated with MS, followed by hypertension.
This disease, which affects 80,000 people in France, attacks nervous system by immune and inflammatory processes. Angiotensin II may play a role in this inflammation, just as it increases blood pressure. Blocking the converting enzyme with lisinopril, which transforms angiotensin into angiotensin II, useful in cases of high blood pressure, would strongly stimulate the immune cells that protect neurons and block the cells responsible for inflammation, which which could help reduce MS lesions.
These results are certainly promising, especially since the lisinopril costs much less than current cutting-edge treatments, but must be confirmed in humans (effects on protective and inflammatory cells) before considering a therapeutic application. This should be the case in 2010 during controlled clinical trials.
For the moment, we do not know the results of these scientific analyzes and we do not know whether the tests on high blood pressure and MS were able to succeed.