Curcumin-like Drug Slows Aging, Reverses Memory Deficits

Drug Slows Aging, Reverses Memory Deficits

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Possible Alzheimer’s & Parkinsons Drug

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Roll over and click on BOLD links above and below to open article – unable to indicate color blue.

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“…potential Alzheimer’s drug works by reducing the rate of aging at the molecular level, according to a new study led by Salk Institute scientists.

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The study explains how the drug both improves cognition and reduces the rate of aging, when given to very old mice.

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Study authors say a drug that inhibits aging may succeed where drugs specifically aimed at Alzheimer’s have failed.

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Getting the drug into human clinical trials will require a little over $1 million.”

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 The study was published in the journal Aging Cell….

The mitochondrial ATP synthase is a shared drug target for aging and dementia

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 Salk Institute News

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….“This really glues together everything we know about J147 in terms of the link between aging and Alzheimer’s,” says Dave Schubert, head of Salk’s Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory and the senior author on the new paper. “Finding the target of J147 was also absolutely critical in terms of moving forward with clinical trials.”

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Schubert’s group developed J147 in 2011, after screening for compounds from plants with an ability to reverse the cellular and molecular signs of aging in the brain. J147 is a modified version of a molecule (curcumin) found in the curry spice turmeric. In the years since, the researchers have shown that the compound reverses memory deficits, potentiates the production of new brain cells, and slows or reverses Alzheimer’s progression in mice. However, they didn’t know how J147 worked at the molecular level.

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In the new work, led by Schubert and Salk Research Associate Josh Goldberg, the team used several approaches to home in on what J147 is doing. They identified the molecular target of J147 as a mitochondrial protein called ATP synthase that helps generate ATP—the cell’s energy currency—within mitochondria. They showed that by manipulating its activity, they could protect neuronal cells from multiple toxicities associated with the aging brain. Moreover, ATP synthase has already been shown to control aging in C. elegans worms and flies.

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“We know that age is the single greatest contributing factor to Alzheimer’s, so it is not surprising that we found a drug target that’s also been implicated in aging,” says Goldberg, the paper’s first author.

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Further experiments revealed that modulating activity of ATP synthase with J147 changes the levels of a number of other molecules—including levels of ATP itself—and leads to healthier, more stable mitochondria throughout aging and in disease.

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“I was very surprised when we started doing experiments with how big of an effect we saw,” says Schubert. “We can give this to old mice and it really elicits profound changes to make these mice look younger at a cellular and molecular level.”

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The results, the researchers say, are not only encouraging for moving the drug forward as an Alzheimer’s treatment, but also suggest that J147 may be useful in other age-associated diseases as well.

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“People have always thought that you need separate drugs for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and stroke” says Schubert. “But it may be that by targeting aging we can treat or slow down many pathological conditions that are old-age-associated.”

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Metformin

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From WebMD, March 29, 2017:

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“Doctors have prescribed metformin, the most common drug to treat type 2 diabetes, for about 60 years. But it’s received new attention as a possible anti-aging drug after researchers in Britain found that people with diabetes who took it outlived some of their peers who did not have the disease by 15%.

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“They compared them to a whole bunch of people who were matched for weight and smoking and [other factors] but who didn’t have diabetes,” says Steven Austad, PhD, chairman of the biology department at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “It turned out the diabetics on metformin were living longer than the non-diabetics who were not on metformin. … It was very, very intriguing.”

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Austad is a bio-gerontologist and scientific director of the American Federation for Aging Research….

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Scientists believe the drug works in the mitochondria, the powerhouses in the body’s cells that convert sugars like glucose into energy. Austad says metformin makes those powerhouses run more efficiently, reducing the release of substances known as free radicals. Free radicals can damage cells, hurting their ability to reproduce and causing defects.”

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….Resveratrol, a compound found in grapes and nuts, may reduce stress that leads to cell aging. Research shows it can extend life span in yeast, worms, and fish, but these effects haven’t been demonstrated in humans yet.”

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The material on this site is for informational purposes only.

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It is not legal for me to provide medical advice without an examination.

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It is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment provided by a qualified health care provider.

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Comments are welcome.

This site is not for email, not for medical questions, and not for appointments.

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For My Home Page, click here:  Welcome to my Weblog on Pain Management!

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METFORMIN for Nerve Pain

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Is metformin the new wonder pill or snake oil? Based on one man’s response to metformin and recent exciting research on the drug, I am looking forward to finding out how it works clinically for my patients with intractable pain (and possibly treatment resistant depression). Hopefully most will confirm it is well tolerated. I am just beginning to trial it after learning this one man’s amazing story:

 

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50% relief of nerve pain &

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musculoskeletal pain

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after 2nd week on metformin

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One Man’s Story

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A few days ago I spoke with a man, not my patient, who had 50% relief of pain after the second week on metformin. He’s taken it for 3 months now, but the big change came dramatically after the second week when he had been on the 2,000 mg dose a full week. In 2013, he was on the side of the freeway median lane, and had crawled into the engine of his disabled Ford F350 reaching in with his left hand when his vehicle was hit by a Lexus SUV going 70 mph and he was thrown. He doesn’t talk about his pain. Ever. He needs total knee replacement in the next few weeks, and has had four surgeries on his left wrist, mangled in that engine, now with a long steel plate in the wrist. He broke the titanium plate and it wasn’t healing. Since metformin, the skin and surgical scar is healing. He’s one of these quiet guys who don’t ever talk about pain. His wife simply said these days he’s sleeping since on metformin.

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But no one had asked him about pain since on metformin or for years either. It took 30 minutes to get one little bit of information from him on pain, like pulling teeth: Since metformin, he’s had 50% relief including the nerve pain at his wrist.

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She said he used to sit up all night in pain for years and was very irritable. Irritability is what happens with no sleep; pain is worse with no sleep. I could not get him to rate his pain. Stoic. Bright man, stoic. Devilish sense of humor. Severe pain for so many years he would never talk about. His surgeon had him stop the Vicodin 5/325 weeks before his last surgery “to help it heal.”

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Some of his relief may have also been influenced by blood sugar dropping from 170 to 90, no more excessive thirst and urination keeping him awake, but the neuropathic pain at his wrist had been nasty a few years. Pain had kept him up for months. He had no side effects.

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Metformin

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Metformin is a medication approved in Canada in 1972 and in the United States by the FDA in 1994 for type 2 diabetes. It is well tolerated when prescribed for people who do not have diabetes but who have other conditions such as PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome), infertility; and it is the focus of intense activity being studied for its

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(1) anti-aging (PDF from Wake Forest University or the Albert Einstein Medical School Longevity study clinicaltrials.gov), 

(2) anti-cancer (it “has become the focus of intense research as a potential anticancer agent” per Cancer Treat. Res. publication 2014) and now recently being studied for

(3) anti-inflammatory analgesic effects.

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“Metformin increases the number of oxygen molecules released into a cell, which appears to boost robustness and longevity. It works by suppressing glucose production in the liver and increasing insulin sensitivity, therefore benefiting patients with type 2 diabetes.”

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I am very interested by all the new research being done on an old drug, metformin, that has suddenly turned heads in just the last few months as we learn its mechanisms involving the pain matrix. Is this metformin some miracle drug, another hot trendy bandwagon people jump on in medicine? It’s an old drug already FDA approved, now repurposed, with excellent safety, and four months ago a publication shows it to be a glial modulator and anti-inflammatory, centrally active. Best of all, it was dramatically potent in the setting of this man’s intractable nerve and musculoskeletal pain.

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But how do we get from 1994 to 2017, through the Decade of Pain, seeing patients who have astonishing pain relief without asking a single patient, millions of patients if it helped pain? A recent past president of the American Endocrine Society said: “No good data on metformin to treat pain. Everything else, but not pain.” He also said, “Safe. We do it all the time for people with PCOS, infertility, cancer, etc. The anti-aging people use it all the time. No risk of hypoglycemia. Just be sure their GFR is above 40.” So ask your doctor who may not know it’s hot research right now.

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When was it first mentioned for pain?

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Less than one year ago, a report on metformin’s use for pain was a 2016 poster presentation at the annual meeting of the American Pain Society from Ted Price’s lab at University Texas Dallas. “The AMPK activator metformin has been shown by our lab to reverse the effects of chronic neuropathic pain in various short term studies….The treatment successfully decreased the hypersensitivity and cold allodynia associated with neuropathic pain, and showed persistent relief for several weeks post-injection. Metformin also decreased the activation of microglia in the spinal cord.”

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I have cautiously held back prescribing it for pain until I heard this man’s story a few days ago, and days later I am still astonished at the relief he had. I immediately suspected metformin must be a strong glial modulator and that mechanism was confirmed in a publication four months ago, in animal (discussed at end).

 

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 SIDE EFFECTS

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If some develop side effects, stop the medication until all side effects are zero. Then at your own body’s rate, as slowly as needed, increase if needed to 1000 mg twice daily.

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If you again have side effects, again stop til all are zero. Maybe your top dose with no side effects is less than 2,000 mg/day.

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More information on potential side effects  are on the next metformin post – almost none in 18,000 patient years, and not a single case of lactic acidosis.

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STUDIES NEEDED

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It would be extremely helpful to see a study on metformin’s use for pain in a major cancer center, including the range of all underlying diagnoses of those patients who may not be in best of health.  What are % of side effects?

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INFLAMMATION

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Metformin helps inflammation. Inflammation is the cause of 90% mortality. Almost all disease in the body begins with inflammation including atherosclerosis that leads to plaque, heart attacks, stroke. And the same risk factors for heart disease are same for Alzheimers. Inflammation manifests differently in each of us, but to relieve pain, major depression, bipolar disease, PTSD, it can be very dynamic to see response in a few hours once you have the right dose and combination of glial modulators. If this one can relieve 50% of severe chronic pain in two weeks, with few or no side effects, then millions can benefit now. It is an old generic drug repurposed for pain, that is anti-inflammatory. Best of all anti-inflammatory up there in the brain where the inflammatory cytokines produced by glia make you feel like you have the flu:  difficulty thinking, fatigue, drowsy, achey, irritable, needing sleep. That is inflammation. The innate immune system going into gear to attack a virus or…..damage.

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Studies reported about 2001, NIMH showed brain atrophy and memory loss in chronic depression, and about 2009 others showed the same in chronic low back pain.

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My focus for years has been on inflammation in the CNS (brain, spinal cord) because NSAIDs like ibuprofen, Aleve, do not reach the CNS and do not interact on the cells of interest: glia, the cells of the innate immune system that produce a balance of anti-inflammatory and pro-inflammatory chemicals called cytokines. BALANCE.

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Tolerance is a big issue in treating pain or major depression. I strongly recommend reading yesterday’s post on tolerance, i.e. when the body stops responding to ketamine or morphine or an antidepressant after several days or weeks or years. Inflammation may be one cause.

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A publication four months ago shows metformin has both immune and glial suppressive effects that can relieve tolerance to morphine.  It’s a centrally acting analgesic because that’s where chronic pain or major depression is, in the CNS.

 

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MECHANISM of PAIN RELIEF

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It has both immune and glial suppressive effects: J Neuroinflammation. 2016 Nov 17;13(1):294.

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Metformin reduces morphine tolerance by inhibiting microglial-mediated neuroinflammation.

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ABSTRACT

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BACKGROUND:

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Tolerance [see post on this subject yesterday] seriously impedes the application of morphine in clinical medicine. Thus, it is necessary to investigate the exact mechanisms and efficient treatment. Microglial activation and neuroinflammation in the spinal cord are thought to play pivotal roles on the genesis and maintaining of morphine tolerance. Activation of adenosine monophosphate-activated kinase (AMPK) has been associated with the inhibition of inflammatory nociception. Metformin, a biguanide class of antidiabetic drugs and activator of AMPK, has a potential anti-inflammatory effect. The present study evaluated the effects and potential mechanisms of metformin in inhibiting microglial activation and alleviating the antinociceptive tolerance of morphine.

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RESULTS:

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We found that morphine-activated BV-2 cells, including the upregulation of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (p38 MAPK) phosphorylation, pro-inflammatory cytokines, and Toll-like receptor-4 (TLR-4) mRNA expression, which was inhibited by metformin.Metformin suppressed morphine-induced BV-2 cells activation through increasing AMPK phosphorylation, which was reversed by the AMPK inhibitor compound C. Additionally, in BV-2 cells, morphine did not affect the cell viability and the mRNA expression of anti-inflammatory cytokines. In bEnd3 cells, morphine did not affect the mRNA expression of interleukin-1β (IL-1β), but increased IL-6 and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) mRNA expression; the effect was inhibited by metformin. Morphine also did not affect the mRNA expression of TLR-4 and chemokine ligand 2 (CCL2). Furthermore, systemic administration of metformin significantly blocked morphine-induced microglial activation in the spinal cord and then attenuated the development of chronic morphine tolerance in mice.

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CONCLUSIONS:

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Metformin significantly attenuated morphine antinociceptive tolerance by suppressing morphine-induced microglial activation through increasing AMPK phosphorylation.

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The material on this site is for informational purposes only.

.

It is not legal for me to provide medical advice without an examination.

.

It is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment provided by a qualified health care provider.

~~

This site is not for email and not for appointments.

If you wish an appointment, please telephone the office to schedule.

~~~~~

For My Home Page, click here:  Welcome to my Weblog on Pain Management!

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Please IGNORE THE ADS BELOW. They are not from me.

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