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Hello Health Rounds readers! GLP-1 drugs are in the news again, and not for weight loss. It is possible that drugs in this class can slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease. We also cover a potentially important discovery in the field of asthma, which could lead to new treatments, as well as an investigation into the prevalence of mistreatment of many mothers during childbirth in hospitals Americans.
Diabetes drug could slow progression of Parkinson’s disease
A diabetes drug in the same class of drugs widely used to treat obesity appears to slow the progression of early stages of Parkinson’s disease in a mid-stage trial, but with a potentially unacceptable rate of gastrointestinal side effects.
In the French trial, 156 patients who had Parkinson’s disease for less than three years and were receiving stable doses of drugs to treat symptoms received either daily injections of Sanofi SASY.PA’s GLP-1 agonist lixisenatide or a placebo.
After 12 months, the lixisenatide group had virtually no change in scores on a validated tool for assessing movement disorders in Parkinson’s disease, while the placebo group had a 3-point worsening of symptoms on a scale of 199 points, according to a report published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine.
The 3-point advantage in treated patients was still evident two months later, the researchers found. However, 46% of participants who received lixisenatide experienced nausea and 13% experienced vomiting.
“The incidence of side effects may pose a barrier to wider use of lixisenatide in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease,” wrote Dr. David Standaert, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, in an editorial published in the site at the same time as the study.
Originally sold under the brand name Adlyxin, Sanofi stopped selling the drug in the United States in early 2023.
If a three-point improvement is the most that can be achieved, the benefit of lixisenatide could be limited, particularly because of side effects, Standaert said.
However, if the drug allows patients to remain stable while those who are not treated see their condition deteriorate by three points per year “over a period of 5 to 10 years or more, then it could be a truly transformative treatment,” said Standaert.
Asthma attacks damage the lining of the airways
Asthma attacks actually damage the airways, new findings show, and preventing this damage could be the subject of new treatments, researchers say.
Although primarily considered an inflammatory disease in which the immune system attacks tissues, causing inflammation and mucus production, asthma is also known to involve bronchoconstriction – the tightening of the smooth muscle that surrounds the airways. .
By studying human lung tissue and asthmatic mice, researchers at King’s College London discovered that muscle constriction compresses and destroys the epithelial cells that form the lining of the airways. This damage in turn promotes inflammation and mucus production often associated with an asthma attack, they explain in a report published Thursday in Science.
Researchers found that the standard treatment for asthma – albuterol to open the airways and inhaled corticosteroids to control inflammation – does not prevent damage to the airway epithelium and the inflammation that occurs. results after an asthma attack.
However, blocking the compression process and subsequent destruction of epithelial cells helped counteract the damage to the airways and significantly reduce the inflammatory response, they said.
“These results not only establish that bronchoconstriction is a pro-inflammatory stimulus, but they also open the way to new avenues of research that could inhibit the vicious cycle of mechanical damage and inflammation,” wrote another team. of authors in a commentary published on the site at the same time as the study.
1 in 8 American mothers report being abused during childbirth
Various forms of mistreatment during childbirth are common in U.S. hospitals, according to a study published Thursday in JAMA Network Open.
Researchers surveyed a representative sample of approximately half a million people who gave birth to a child living in 2020 in New York City and the states of Kansas, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Utah and Virginia. Nearly 14% of the 4,458 study participants reported mistreatment during labor and delivery by responding to a validated questionnaire.
The most common forms of mistreatment reported were: being “ignored, denied a request for help, or not responding in a timely manner”, being “yelled at or scolded” by health care providers, and have healthcare providers threaten “to refuse treatment or force you to accept treatment that you did not want”.
This type of treatment was most commonly reported by women who were unmarried, insured by the Medicaid program for the poor, identified as LGBTQ, considered obese, with a history of substance use disorders, mental disorders, mood or domestic or intimate partner violence, as well as by women who have given birth by unplanned cesarean section.
“Mistreatment during childbirth has been widely documented in low- and middle-income countries, but this study shows that respectful maternal care is an important quality metric that we should also follow in the United States,” said in a press release the leader of the study, Jamie Daw, of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, in New York.
Her team only looked at abuse during childbirth. New mothers in the sample may also have experienced mistreatment during pregnancy or the postnatal period, the researchers said.