RESEARCHERS at the University of Dundee have heralded a breakthrough in the way the earliest symptoms of Huntington’s disease are treated.
Scientists from the university’s School of Medicine – working with counterparts based at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Bonn, both in Germany – found that the drug Metformin may have therapeutic benefits for those recently diagnosed.
Huntington’s disease is a degenerative condition that prevents parts of the brain from functioning correctly. It is believed the drug – usually used to treat diabetes – can help to restore brain activity before symptoms of the terminal illness become established.
Research published in the journal eLife found that the drug can help to regulate the Huntingtin protein, which in a mutated form can accumulate in the brain, leading to the onset of the illness.
Dr Ros Langston on the University Dundee school of Medicine, and co-author of the study, said: “This is a really important development as there are currently no effective treatments for Huntington’s patients.
“Metformin is already in the public domain and its limited side effects are already known, meaning that further studies should not take as long as those for new drugs. This means that in terms of developing therapeutic treatment for people who may have Huntington’s in their family, this is potentially very exciting news.”
Symptoms of the inherited illness – which affects thousands across the UK – usually affect those between the ages of 30 and 50 and include involuntary movements of the limbs and cognitive impairment. It is often fatal within 20 years of the symptoms appearing and requires full-time nursing in the latter stages.
From studying the visual cortex in mice treated with Metformin, the Dundee and German academics found that the drug helped to restore brain activity patterns and reduce erratic behaviour by controlling the Huntingtin protein.
Professor Susann Schweiger-Seemann, honorary professor at Dundee University and speaker in translational neurosciences at Johannes Gutenberg University, said, “We have to do more studies to see what happens with later onset symptoms, but from this study we have seen that Huntingtin protein levels dropped dramatically by taking Metformin.”
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