Blood pressure pill could help treat multiple sclerosis

Professor Lawrence Stienman, a neurologist, believes the drug, which costs a fraction of the price of normal treatment for the degenerative disease, could slow down the relentless march of the condition by blocking the way it attacks the central nervous system.

The research could offer new hope to the 100,000 or so sufferers of the condition which leads to debilitating attacks, including balance problems, bladder complaints and memory loss.

Professor Stienman, who studies treatments for MS, discovered that the pill Lisinopril may be effective in treating the condition when he was prescribed it for his own high blood pressure. He looked up the treatment during an internet search on his computer and found surprising links with his own research.

Further testing on mice and human brain tissue showed that it should in theory at least be affective in slowing down the progression of MS which damages myelin- a protective sheath surrounding nerve fibres of the central nervous system.

When myelin is damaged, this interferes with messages between the brain and other parts of the body.

While Professor Steinman of Stanford University, cautioned that extensive clinical trial work is needed to determine if the drug can do in humans what it does in mice, he is excited that "we were able to show that all the targets for lisinopril are there and ready for therapeutic manipulation in the multiple-sclerosis lesions of human patients.

The medication works by suppressing angiotensin, a hormone which controls blood pressure but also plays a role in MS. The hormone is found in elevated levels in the brains of MS sufferers.

The drug also appears to have certain anti-inflammatory properties which can also suppress MS.

The research, published in the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found in mice that Lisinopril reduced paralysis caused by MS and could even reverse the the damage..

Professor Steinman's results have major public-health implications, said Marc Feldmann, an Imperial College London immunologist who is familiar with the study but did not participate in it. He said that the current therapies for multiple sclerosis, including Tysabri, are expensive, costing thousands of pounds a year.

"If multiple-sclerosis patients can be treated with lisinopril at something like one per cent of the price of treatment with Tysabri, then far more patients will receive adequate therapy, at a substantially lower cost to those paying for it," he said.