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- Pioglitazone -
General Information:
Names: Pioglitazone, Actos (USA, Canada, the UK and Germany), Glustin (Europe),
Glizone and Pioz (India), Zactos (Mexico)
See also Mitochondrial Dysfunction
Parkinson's Disease
Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioglitazone
"Pioglitazone is a prescription drug of the class thiazolidinedione (TZD) with hypoglycemic (antihyperglycemic, antidiabetic) action to treat diabetes. It is used to improve glucose control in adults over the age of 18 with type 2 diabetes. Pioglitazone is marketed as trademarks Actos in the USA, Canada, the UK and Germany, Glustin in Europe, Glizone and Pioz in India by Zydus Cadila and USV Limited, respectively and Zactos in Mexico by Takeda Pharmaceuticals. Actos was the tenth-best selling drug in the U.S. in 2008, with sales exceeding $2.4 billion.[1] Its cardiovascular safety profile compares favorably with rosiglitazone (Avandia), which was withdrawn after concerns about an increased risk of cardiac events. However, pioglitazone has subsequently been found to be associated with bladder tumors and has been withdrawn in some countries..."
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Observations:
NOTE: One would think that those treated with this drug for Type II diabetes would have a lower incidence of the neurodegenerative diseases if this indeed is effective.
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Known sources:
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Natural sources:
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References:
In Parkinson's Disease, Brain Cells Abandon Mitochondria
ScienceDaily (Oct. 8, 2010) — In a study that sheds new light on the causes of Parkinson's disease, researchers report that brain cells in Parkinson's patients abandon their energy-producing machinery, the mitochondria. A shutdown in fuel can have devastating effects on brain cells, which consume roughly 20 percent of the body's energy despite making up only 2 percent of body weight... researchers, now show that a root cause of Parkinson's disease may lie in 10 gene sets related to energy production that spur neurons in the brain to "divorce" their mitochondria and related energy-producing pathways..."The most exciting result from our study for me is the discovery of PGC-1alpha as a new therapeutic target for early intervention in Parkinson's disease. PGC-1alpha is a master switch that activates hundreds of mitochondrial genes, including many of those needed to maintain and repair the power plants in the mitochondria,"... FDA-approved medications [Actos, CoQ10] that activate that PGC-1alpha are already available for widespread diseases like diabetes. These medications may jumpstart the development of new Parkinson's drugs; instead of having to start from scratch, pharmaceutical companies may be able to dust off their drug libraries and find look-alike drugs capable of targeting PGC-1alpha in the brain. "As we wrap up our first year of publishing the journal, the new study from Zheng et al. exemplifies the goal of Science Translational Medicine, applying knowledge and technology from different fields-such as neuroscience, genomics and bioinformatics-to achieve new discoveries,"...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101006151557.htm
Study: Brain energy crisis may spark Parkinson's
By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
...A diabetes drug named Actos is among the compounds known to activate part of that PGC-1alpha pathway, and Weill Cornell's Beal says it's poised for an initial small trial in Parkinson's. Separately, a nutrient named Coenzyme Q10 is believed important in mitochondrial energy production, and Beal is leading a study to see if high doses might help Parkinson's. Results are due in 2012...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/11/01/national/w100153D54.DTL#ixzz146V9bQy7
Diabetes Drug Shows Promise in Treatment of Neurodegenerative Disease
June 7, 2013 — Researchers in Spain have found that a drug used to control Type II diabetes can help repair the spinal cords of mice suffering from the inherited disease adrenoleukodystrophy... They believe that their findings may be relevant to other neurodegenerative diseases. A Phase II trial will be starting shortly... "We also knew that the pathway involved in the mitochondrial loss could be treated by the use of the diabetes drug pioglitazone"... multiple sclerosis, and many others where impaired bioenergetics combined with oxidative stress and degeneration of axons are known to be involved. The latter category of disease includes Parkinson's, Huntington's, and Alzheimer's. "It is possible that our findings may be relevant to these conditions as well,"...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130607222510.htm
Pioglitazone halts axonal degeneration in a mouse model of X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy.
Laia Morato, Jorge Galino, Montserrat Ruiz, Noel Ylagan Calingasan, Anatoly A. Starkov, Magali Dumont, Alba Naudi, Juan Jose Martinez, Patrick Aubourg, Manuel Portero-Otin, Reinald Pamplona, Elena Galea, M. Flint Beal, Isidre Ferrer, Stephane Fourcade and Aurora Pujol.
Brain, 2013 DOI: 10.1093/brain/awt143
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21786300
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Updated: July 25, 2012
Inception: July 25, 2012