Raloxifene (Evista) osteoporosis drug and PD

[genesurf]

Research in mice shows that the osteoporosis drug "raloxifene" (brand name Evista) may help prevent dopaminergic neuron loss.

Just wondered if anyone here is taking it already for osteoporosis, and has it helped your PD?

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/276... "... the present results suggest that raloxifene may help preventing the loss of DAergic neurons in the myenteric plexus in an MPTP mouse model of PD, at least in part through its anti-inflammatory effects. This suggests that drug repurposing of raloxifene might represent a promising therapeutic avenue to prevent systemic inflammation and peripheral neuronal dysfunction at early PD stages."

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/214...

[park_bear]

First reference, from the text of the study:

" Mice were divided into 6 groups comprised of 8-9 mice per group and respectively treated with vehicle, raloxifene, or a combination of raloxifene and the GPER1 antagonist G15 for 10 days. On day 5, mice received 4 injections of MPTP at 2-hour intervals, whereas the control groups received only saline. On day 11, mice were killed and the gut was collected." [Brand names and sources of chemicals emitted for readability]

The problem with this kind of study is that it merely shows that the treatment protected the test animals against toxic insult. In the case of actual Parkinson's the toxic insult is typically long gone and what is needed is to clean up the damage, namely, malformed alpha synuclein. What this study did was to prevent damage in the first place. These two things are not the same. This kind of study is so weak it does not really qualify as evidence. What they needed to have done was to apply the toxic insult first, cause the damage, and then see if the treatment cleans up the mess.

The second study no better: " and were injected daily with 17β-estradiol, tamoxifen, raloxifene, PPT and DPN respectively for 5days before 6-OHDA and continued for further 2 weeks."

This kind of nonsense is commonplace. An egregious waste of time and money and opportunity cost.

With all that said, there is nothing wrong with your inquiry as to whether this treatment has actually helped anybody.

[genesurf in reply to park_bear]

It's not for advanced PD. As they said, "... promising therapeutic avenue to prevent systemic inflammation and peripheral neuronal dysfunction at early PD stages". Emphasis on prevention and early.

Evista is commonly prescribed for postmenopausal women to prevent bone loss and reduce the incidence of breast cancer. I am wondering if anyone here has been taking Evista long-term, perhaps even before their PD was diagnosed. And if so, how are they progressing?

[park_bear in reply to genesurf]

Parkinson's symptoms only become apparent after 80 percent of dopamine producing neurons are lost or disabled. So early stage Parkinson's symptoms represent advanced stage neuron loss.

Prevention would be great if we knew we were being subjected to a toxic exposure that could cause Parkinson's. But that occurs many years before diagnosis.