Free Republic

A decade after scientists identified an over-the-counter antihistamine as a treatment for multiple sclerosis, researchers have developed an approach to measure the drug's effectiveness in repairing the brain. The researchers, led by Ari Green, used MRI scans to study the drug's impact on the brain of 50 participants in a clinical study. In MS, patients lose myelin, the protective insulation around nerve fibers. This myelin loss triggers delays in nerve signals, leading to weakness and spasticity, and other symptoms. In the brain, water trapped between the thin layers of myelin that wrap nerve fibers cannot move as freely as water...

What if an over-the-counter allergy medicine could help halt and even reverse multiple sclerosis? And if it did, could patients return to their full capacity? Those were some of the questions posed by Jonah Chan, Ph.D., and Ari Green, MD. The two had discovered in the lab that the medication clemastine—originally approved as an antihistamine—could repair myelin, the protective insulation around nerve fibers that is damaged in MS. That early discovery in Chan's lab, in which clemastine was shown to stimulate the differentiation of myelin-making stem cells, led to clinical trials to test the therapy in people. Surprisingly, these were...