Gail, I hope all of your positive comments are true, as I'm in an Open
Label test for Riluzole (Rilutek).  It is administered by Baylor Uni of
Medicine in Houston.

Lanny 56/4/1+



Gail Vass wrote:
>
> Drug slows pace of Parkinson’s
>
> New York, Jan. 28 1999 - Recently Parkinson’s disease has
> been in the news because actor Michael J. Fox revealed that
> he suffers from the degenerative brain disorder. Before
> that it was Attorney General Janet Reno and boxer Muhammad
> Ali. Now a drug for Lou Gehrig’s disease is being tested as
> a way to slow the progression of Parkinson’s.
>
> It started with a twitch in my right index finger, which is
> going right now,” said Parkinson’s patient Carole Peters.
>
> In the past 10 years, Peters’ Parkinson’s disease has progressed
> rapidly. Today, she only gets about 30 minutes at a time relatively
> symptom-free. The remainder of the time, she’s either shaking,
> or she is completely stiff.
>
> “The stiffness bothers me the most because I feel like I’m stuck
> in a chair and can’t move and helpless. I get panicky,” Peters
> explained.
>
> Peter’s Parkinson’s is due to the degeneration of a specific group
> of nerve cells deep in the brain. It is not clear why these brain cells
> die, but one theory is that they are bombarded with an excess
> of a neurotransmitter called glutamate.
>
> According to Dr. Warren Olanow of Mount Sinai Medical School,
> “Normally, glutamate helps to communicate information between
> nerves and other nerves. But if you get too much glutamate, it
> can actually induce cell death, what’s called excitotoxic
> degeneration.
>
> A new drug called Rilutek, already approved to treat Lou Gehrig’s
> disease, is being tested as a way to protect brain cells in Parkinson’s.
>
> The central neuron is damaged by too much glutamate. Rilutek then is
> introduced and the glutamate dissipates.
>
> Dr. Olanow said, “The hope is that if we block the glutamate with
> this drug inParkinson’s disease, we’ll be able to interfere with
> that cascade and slow down the degeneration.”
>
> In other words, if an early stage Parkinson’s patient were to be
> given the drug, it might prevent them from getting to the advanced stage
> that Peters suffers, or at least significantly delay that progression.
>
> Dr. Olanow is leading a national study to see whether Rilutek works.
> “We are recruiting patients with early, untreated or minimally
> Parkinson’s disease,” he said.
>
> This Phase III study aims to enroll people with early Parkinson’s, ages
> 40 to 80, at 43 medical centers around the country.
> The Parkinson’s Foundation is encouraging patients to take part, partly
> because it is the first drug that actually interferes with
> the cell death process rather than just treating the symptoms.
>
> This is not a cure for Parkinson’s, but what Rilutek may do is
> make it so that instead of taking 10 years to get to a certain
> stage of the disaese, it may take 20 years or more.
>
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> --
> Gail Vass
>                          ^^^
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