Highlander Newspaper

Issue date: 2/2/10 Section: News

Media Credit: Emily Corkery Drugs used for hypertension and other coronary conditions may also act to protect neurons in the brain.

Dr. Beate Ritz, professor of epidemiology at UCLA, along with other researchers from UCLA and the Danish Cancer Society, has discovered that the same type of medication that is used to treat patients with conditions such as abnormal heart rhythms, angina and hypertension can also be used to decrease the risk of developing Parkinson's disease.

A specific sub-class of dihydropyridine cardiovascular medications was found to decrease the risk of Parkinson's by 26 to 30 percent.

Parkinson's disease is described to be a loss of voluntary movement in which neurons located in the brain eventually die. These neurons have calcium channels in their cell membranes which transmit electrical charges, or "information," to one another. Muscles such as the heart have calcium channels in their cell membranes as well and therefore depend on these channels to function.

Substances that block or modify the function of calcium channels are used for people with hypertension, angina and other conditions. These drugs act on a specific channel known as the L-type by crossing the blood-brain barrier and can potentially act on neurons in the brain. The neurons in the brain which degenerate during Parkinson's disease also contain L-type calcium channels.

By using the databases of Denmark's medical facilities, Ritz and her colleagues were able to perform a controlled case study in which they evaluated medical histories of 1,931 patients with Parkinson's disease and 9,651 subjects which were unaffected for up to 12 years prior to the diagnosis of Parkinson's.

Ritz states that the key to this study was to focus on the action of the drugs and if they cross the blood-brain barrier or not.

"Some do and some don't. We found that of all the hypertension medications taken by our study subjects, only the subset of dihydropyridine class drugs that cross into the brain, where they might be able to act on the calcium channels of neurons, provided a protective effect," said Ritz in a released statement. "This supports the idea that the mode of action of a given drug and whether it penetrates into the brain are important factors when studying drugs for neuro-protection."

Ritz also cautions against trying to take these medications because those who suffer from Parkinson's and who also have low blood pressure will not benefit-it could very well worsen their condition. Because of this, Ritz stated that a better understanding of how the medication works with the various conditions of patients is necessary before the application of the drugs.

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