Adding antibiotics to standard drug therapy may slow down the progress of multiple sclerosis, research suggests.
Patients showed fewer symptoms, and fewer signs of tissue damage when they took the antibiotic doxycycline alongside the MS drug beta interferon.
Louisiana State University researchers believe the antibiotic may block the action of enzyme that destroy certain cells in the nervous system.
Archives of Neurology reports the study involving 15 patients on its website.
However, UK experts warned the study was small, and no comparison was made with patients who did not take doxycycline.
"Antibiotics are cheap and easily available, which would make them an attractive treatment for MS if they were shown to be beneficial," said Dr Laura Bell, MS Society.
The 15 patients who took part in the study all had relapsing-remitting MS - the most common form of the disease.
Typically, this causes attacks of symptoms such as muscle weakness and spasms, followed by periods of remission.
The attacks result from damage inflicted on the body by its own immune system, which turns in on itself, attacking the nervous tissue.
It is thought that these attacks may be triggered by an inappropriate response to viral or bacterial infections, or another potentially disease-causing agent.
They are certainly very unpredictable, and symptoms come and go, often seemingly randomly.
Many patients with relapsing-remitting MS take the drug interferon, which helps to suppress the immune system, and keep it working more normally.
However, they are still prone to attacks which cause damage to the tissue of the brain.
Brain scans
The study focused on patients who had been taking interferon for at least six months, and who were still experiencing symptoms, and developing new tissue damage in the brain.
For four months the patients took 100mg a day of doxycycline alongside their regular dose of interferon.
At the end of this period brain scans revealed that brain tissue damage was reduced by at least 25% in nine of the patients.
There were also signs that disability levels had improved.
The researchers believe that doxycycline, a member of the tetracycline family of antibiotics, may block an enzyme which destroys nerve cells, thus protecting the brain and increasing the effectiveness of the immune system.
Dr Laura Bell, of the MS Society, said: "Antibiotics are cheap and easily available, which would make them an attractive treatment for MS if they were shown to be beneficial.
"However this study is very early stage in only 15 people with MS and no firm conclusions can be drawn at this stage."
Chris Jones, chief executive of the MS Trust, agreed that the study was small, and had only covered a short period of time.
"A longer trial with more people will be needed before we can properly gauge the value of this combination for people with MS."
Helen Yates, of the MS Resource Centre, said the condition was complex and difficult.
She said other work was examining the possibility that MS was linked to an infection of the bacterium Chlamydia pneumoniae - more commonly associated with respiratory disease - in the brain.
"The growing interest in combination therapies is producing some good results, in particular for those people for whom single therapies have not worked."
Posts: 2557 | From home | Registered: Aug 2006
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CaliforniaLyme
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 7136
posted
SO shocked!!- thank you Monty*)!!!
-------------------- There is no wealth but life. -John Ruskin
All truth goes through 3 stages: first it is ridiculed: then it is violently opposed: finally it is accepted as self evident. - Schopenhauer Posts: 5639 | From Aptos CA USA | Registered: Apr 2005
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tdtid
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 10276
posted
Most of us here have said that even if diagnosed with M.S., why not try abx and see what happens. Could it really hurt????
Good find, Vermont_Lymie
Cathy
-------------------- "To Dream The Impossible Dream" Man of La Mancha Posts: 2638 | From New Hampshire | Registered: Oct 2006
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dontlikeliver
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 4749
posted
Let's sit back and watch them 'chuck' abx at people with MS like they're candy now whereas we, who also benefit, have to beg and plead, etc and still not believed.
Alternatively, we could now revert to our possible MS or MS dx that some had.
Posts: 2824 | From The Back of Beyond | Registered: Oct 2003
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adamm
Unregistered
posted
How is MS diagnosed? Clinically?
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tdtid
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 10276
posted
Dontlikeliver,
I definitely understand what you are saying.. especially if M.S. gives them a free ticket to abx, but keep in mind that this article came from BBC, which would live by different standards than we do in the U.S.
May have to go to England to get those abx, even for M.S.
Cathy
-------------------- "To Dream The Impossible Dream" Man of La Mancha Posts: 2638 | From New Hampshire | Registered: Oct 2006
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D Bergy
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 9984
posted
LDN or Low Dose Naltrexone is one of the more effective drugs for stopping MS progression.
Anyone with MS should give it a try. I am using it for Crohn's disease.
Some people use it for Lyme disease also. Regulates the immune system, but will not cure Lyme disease.
D Bergy
Posts: 2924 | From Minnesota | Registered: Aug 2006
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dontlikeliver
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 4749
posted
Cathy,
I live in England. However, those MS patients here won't get abx until it is written into the NICE guidelines that they definitely work, etc. So, I don't think it's happening yet.
I will see what the deal is though soon if I go, as I plan, to the local MS Center to get HBOT. I can ask around and see what MS people are being offered in way of abx...nothing I suspect, yet. This is the land of health-rationing btw.
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