PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Existing drugs point to first treatment for strokes linked to dementia

2023-05-24
(Press-News.org) People who experience a type of stroke linked with nearly half of all dementias could be treated for the first time by repurposing two cheap and common drugs, a trial shows.  

Researchers found that isosorbide mononitrate and cilostazol, which are already used to treat other heart and circulatory diseases, can safely improve the debilitating outcomes people experience after lacunar stroke.  

The two drugs, which were found to be even more effective when used in combination, could be available as a treatment for lacunar strokes within five years, if the results are confirmed in further trials, experts say.  

Lacunar strokes affect at least 35,000 people in the UK each year. They are caused by cerebral small vessel disease, where small blood vessels deep within the brain become damaged and stop working properly. Small vessel disease is also a common cause of cognitive impairment and dementia. 

The strokes can be distressing as people may develop problems with their thinking and memory, movement, and even dementia. There are currently no specific effective treatments. 

The trial, led by the Universities of Edinburgh and Nottingham and the UK Dementia Research Institute, involved 363 people who had experienced a lacunar stroke.  

As well as their standard stroke prevention treatment, for one year participants took either isosorbide mononitrate or cilostazol individually, both drugs together, or neither.  

The trial, funded by the British Heart Foundation, investigated cilostazol and isosorbide mononitrate as they possibly improve the function of the inner lining of blood vessels, which researchers believe play a role in small vessel disease. 

Participants that took both drugs were nearly 20 per cent less likely to have problems with their thinking and memory compared to the group that did not take either drug. They were also more independent and reported a better quality of life. 

In addition, those who took isosorbide mononitrate were less likely to have had further strokes at one year than those who did not take the drug. 

Taken on their own, isosorbide mononitrate also improved thinking and memory skills, and quality of life, while cilostazol improved independence and mood. These effects were strengthened when the two drugs were taken together, researchers say.  

The team is now planning to test these drugs in a larger four-year clinical trial, which they hope to start by the end of 2023. They are also looking to test whether the drugs are effective in different conditions linked to small vessel disease, such as vascular cognitive impairment and dementia. 

The findings are published in the journal JAMA Neurology: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/10.1001/jamaneurol.2023.1526?guestAccessKey=6c19d0a3-9a64-4fc7-81fc-70fe87bfe2da&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=052423  [URL will become active after embargo lifts]. This work was also supported by the Alzheimer’s Society and Stroke Association.  

Professor Joanna Wardlaw, Chair of Applied Neuroimaging at the University of Edinburgh and Foundation Chair at the UK Dementia Research Institute, said: “Now we understand more about what is triggering these small vessel strokes to attack the brain, we’ve been able to focus our efforts on treatments that can put a halt to this damage. We need to confirm these results in larger trials before either drug can be recommended as a treatment. However, as these drugs are already widely available for other circulatory disorders, and inexpensive, it shouldn’t take too long to move our findings from research into everyday clinical practice.” 

Professor Sir Nilesh Samani, Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation, said: “These promising findings provide a long-awaited positive step towards the first treatments becoming available for lacunar strokes, offering much needed hope for thousands of people. Lacunar strokes are not the only way that cerebral small vessel disease can affect someone. These findings also open new avenues of research into other conditions related to small vessel disease, such as vascular dementia.” 

END


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Long or short menstrual cycles linked to higher risk of CVD including atrial fibrillation

2023-05-24
Research Highlights: An analysis of data for more than 58,000 women in the U.K. Biobank found that both short (less than 21 days) or long (more than 35 days) menstrual cycles were associated with the development of cardiovascular disease, heart attack or atrial fibrillation (AFib). Short or long menstrual cycle length was associated with a 19% higher risk of heart disease among those women compared to women with menstrual cycle length between 22 to 34 days. Irregular menstrual cycle length was associated with a 40% higher risk of atrial ...

Physical activities like a daily, 20-minute walk may help reduce disparities in heart health

2023-05-24
Statement Highlights: Addressing low levels of physical activity among people in some targeted groups has the potential to improve equity in cardiovascular health. Physical activity levels are lower among some population groups known to have higher cardiovascular disease risk, including adults who are older, female, Black, have depression, have disabilities, have lower socioeconomic status or live in rural areas. It’s important to improve resources and opportunities to decrease barriers to physical activity. Physical activity initiatives should engage the community and ...

Cleft lip caused by combination of genes and environment

2023-05-24
A cleft lip or palate arises from the combined effects of genes and inflammatory risk factors experienced during pregnancy, such as smoking or infections, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The study, published in Nature Communications, has revealed for the first time how genetic and environmental factors come together to form a cleft lip or palate in a developing foetus. Cleft lip, with or without cleft palate, is the most common craniofacial malformation seen at birth, affecting one in 700 live births. It can have devastating ...

Study finds association between long-term exposure to air pollution and severe COVID-19

2023-05-24
A long history of exposure to air pollution is associated with a higher risk of developing severe disease, admission to hospital or an intensive care unit (ICU) and death by COVID‑19 according to a study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a research centre supported by the ”la Caixa” Foundation. The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, was based on a large cohort of 4,660,502 adults resident in Catalonia in 2020, the year the Spanish autonomous community had a high incidence of COVID-19. The ...

Major progress in curing brain tumours

Major progress in curing brain tumours
2023-05-24
Researchers at the University of Gothenburg, working with French colleagues, have successfully developed a method able to kill the aggressive brain tumour glioblastoma. By blocking certain functions in the cell with a docked molecule, the researchers cause the cancer to die of stress. Cancer cells, especially those that form aggressive tumours, are in one way or another out of control and live a very stressful existence. To manage this stress, the cancer cells hijack mechanisms that the healthy cells use to regulate protein production and process the surplus proteins that they create. Without these hijacked mechanisms, ...

Computer‐aided diagnosis improves breast ultrasound expertise in multicenter study

Computer‐aided diagnosis improves breast ultrasound expertise in multicenter study
2023-05-24
Leesburg, VA, May 17, 2023—According to an accepted manuscript published in ARRS’ own American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR), deep learning–based computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) for breast lesion classification on ultrasound significantly improved radiologists’ diagnostic performance—particularly for reducing the frequency of benign breast biopsies. Compared with the literature supporting CAD at tertiary and/or urban centers, results from this prospective multicenter study of radiologists without ...

Not Just for Sleep: Melatonin awakens scientists to its health benefits for cattle

Not Just for Sleep: Melatonin awakens scientists to its health benefits for cattle
2023-05-24
STARKVILLE, Miss.— Those needing extra sleep often reach for the bottle of melatonin, but Mississippi State scientists are discovering a host of other proven and potential health benefits for cattle who receive the supplement. MSU faculty and students in the Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences and the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station are making intriguing discoveries about the functions of melatonin in the bovine body and how this hormone can help support cattle health. MSU Associate Professor Caleb Lemley has an extensive history of studying the use of melatonin as a supplement in cattle. He has been studying how the ...

Racial disparities in outcomes for pregnant and postpartum veterans and their infants

Racial disparities in outcomes for pregnant and postpartum veterans and their infants
2023-05-24
A new study showed that despite there being no significant racial disparities in access or use of care during the perinatal period among veterans using Veterans Administration care, Black veterans were more likely than white veterans to experience postpartum re-hospitalization and to have a low-birth-weight infant. The study is published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Women’s Health.  Click here to read the article now. Jodie Katon, PhD, MS, from VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, and coauthors, reported that Black veterans were 67% more likely than white veterans to have a postpartum re-hospitalization and 67% more likely to have a low-birth-weight ...

Scientists from the Global South innovate to track ongoing amphibian pandemic

Scientists from the Global South innovate to track ongoing amphibian pandemic
2023-05-24
The Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Center at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama partnered with the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in India to develop and validate a new test for chytridiomycosis strains, offering new insights into a wildlife disease that caused dramatic declines of over 500 amphibian species and the extinction of 90 others. Their novel assay, published in the journal Transboundary and Emerging Diseases, identified previously undetected Indian strains, and successfully detected ...

AI tool outperforms human emergency call handlers in identifying stroke, new study shows

AI tool outperforms human emergency call handlers in identifying stroke, new study shows
2023-05-24
(24 May 2023, Munich, Germany) A team of researchers from Denmark have developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) framework to address the number of strokes that go unrecognised by human emergency call handlers.1 The framework outperformed emergency call handlers in recognising stroke for both sexes and across all age groups studied, indicating its potential as a supplementary tool for early and precise stroke identification in the future. The retrospective study, presented today at the European Stroke ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Individuals with multiple sclerosis face substantially greater risk of hospitalisation and death from COVID-19, despite high rates of vaccination

Study shows obesity in childhood associated with a more than doubling of risk of developing multiple sclerosis in early adulthood

Rice Emerging Scholars Program receives $2.5M NSF grant to boost STEM education

Virtual rehabilitation provides benefits for stroke recovery

Generative AI develops potential new drugs for antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Biofuels could help island nations survive a global catastrophe, study suggests

NJIT research team discovering how fluids behave in nanopores with NSF grant

New study shows association of historical housing discrimination and shortfalls in colon cancer treatment

Social media use may help to empower plastic surgery patients

Q&A: How to train AI when you don't have enough data

Wayne State University researchers uncover potential treatment targets for Zika virus-related eye abnormalities

Discovering Van Gogh in the wild: scientists unveil a new gecko species

Small birds spice up the already diverse diet of spotted hyenas in Namibia

Imaging detects transient “hypoxic pockets” in the mouse brain

Dissolved organic matter could be used to track and improve the health of freshwaters

Indoor air quality standards in public buildings would boost health and economy, say international experts

Positive associations between premenstrual disorders and perinatal depression

New imaging method illuminates oxygen's journey in the brain

Researchers discover key gene for toxic alkaloid in barley

New approach to monitoring freshwater quality can identify sources of pollution, and predict their effects

Bidirectional link between premenstrual disorders and perinatal depression

Cell division quality control ‘stopwatch’ uncovered

Vaccine protects cattle from bovine tuberculosis, may eliminate disease

Andrew Siemion to receive the SETI Institute’s 2024 Drake Award

New study shows how the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus enters our cells

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy proves effective for locally advanced penile squamous cell carcinoma

Study flips treatment paradigm in bilateral Wilms tumor, shows resistance to chemotherapy may point toward favorable outcomes

Doctors received approximately $12.1 billion from drug and device makers between 2013-2022

Discovery suggests new strategy against follicular lymphoma

Making the future too bright: how wishful thinking can point us in the wrong direction

[Press-News.org] Existing drugs point to first treatment for strokes linked to dementia