Well, this is not a shock at all. First of all, targeted hypoxia is a well known intervention in NDD conditions, which is what CO2 is doing as one modality. But also there is the well known fact that cigarette smoking is associated with beneficial effects on PD. For a long time people thought it must be the nicotine, but that never panned out in multiple attempts, and more recently researchers have focused on the CO2 component of cigarette smoking - there’s your inhalation! - and the resulting transient mild hypoxia. Bottom line, far from being in some way new and exotic, CO2 in the context of NDD amelioration has a long history and is an active area of research.
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So hypercapnia occurs in type 2 respiratory failure, you don’t have to be hypoxic. Cigarette smoking does result in increased carbon monoxide, not carbon dioxide with is what is the issue with hypercapnia. The problem is that one can get CO2 narcosis and stop breathing - we see if in the ER and ICU with some frequency.
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Researchers have reported that inhibition of 15-hydroxyprostaglandin dehydrogenase was shown to protect neurons and improve motor function in mouse models of Parkinson’s disease in findings that could support repurposing of drugs currently under development
Full paper that is the subject of this writeup:
Inhibiting 15-PGDH restores redox homeostasis and confers neuroprotection in Parkinson’s disease
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213231726002843?via%3Dihub
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Leucine and whey?
For decades, researchers have focused on finding elaborate ways to get more drugs across the BBB. Montara Therapeutics is taking an alternative approach. Rather than simply trying to force more drugs into the brain, the company is using the BBB to its advantage to achieve brain-selective pharmacology, allowing drugs to remain active in the brain while preventing their activity elsewhere in the body.
The strategy recently attracted approximately $1 million in funding from The Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF), which will support the development of a brain-selective mTOR therapy for Parkinson’s disease. More broadly, however, Montara’s approach represents an exciting opportunity to revive promising drug classes that have long been abandoned because of dose-limiting peripheral toxicities.
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