MSF frvmfugrtt ? enzyme thai destroys the critical substance However, cholinesterase inhibitors as a whole are a stopgap Measure and only help some peo ple, said Maroetlc Morrison-Bogo rad, an official with the National Institute on Aging. I "Really, these drugs don't do anything to stop Alzheimer's dis ease from taking its toll," said Morrison-Bogorad. associate director of the institute's neuro science and neuropsychology of aging program. "Sometimes they ponde a family with a little bit of rfchef It's given them a little bit of breathing space where the person has remained more or less them selves," ; Moss said patients using MSF showed a five- to six-point improvement on the 70-point Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale, which is used to grade per formance on a memory test. - Each point represents a mis take. A person with normal brain * > function might score as low as 0. Patients taking drugs already approved for Alzheimer's have typ ically shown about a one-point improvement. Moss said. Tests also have shown that MSF does not cause the side effects ? vomiting, nausea and diarrhea ? associated with similar drugs "It's early to say that this is a drug that makes a lot of changes, but what we have seen is that it works well." said Dr. Patricia Berlanga, whose patients partici pated in Moss' study. "Quality of life can be stabilized and degenera tion does not progress as quickly." She said many of the 15 patients who completed the study are still taking the drug and doing well. Under Mexican law, patients who test a new drug can continue receiving it after the study is over., While Moss concedes that a large-scale trial, such as those required before FDA approval, could determine the drug is not as effective as it has initially appeared, he doesn't believe that will be the case. "I actually expect the results Gene appears to affect risk of getting hooked on smoking By malcolm hitter Associated press science wnu : NEW YORK ? Scientists say they have identified a gene that helps protect some people from getting hooked on cigarettes. If confirmed, the finding might lead to medications that help smokers cut back or quit. ; About one-fifth of the non Smoking population carries a pro > tective version of the gene, said Rachel Tyndale, one of the study's authors. The gene's influence might have saved some 7 million residents of North America from nicotine addiction, she said. It is at least the second gene thought to play a role in vulnera bility to nicotine addiction. But genetics experts warned that the case for the new gene is far from proven. Tyndale and colleagues at the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada, report their findings in a recent issue of the journal Nature. Dr. Neal Benowitz, a nicotine Gesearcher at the University of California at San Francisco, said tfie result makes sense biologically. ?ut he cautioned that in the past, suiplar initial findings of addiction genes have not been confirmed by further research. I Nonetheless, he called the find ing an important early step in find ijig out why some people are more vulnerable to nicotine addiction than others. Only about a third of jfcoung people who' experiment with cigarettes get hooked, and *lwe don't know why," Benowitz &id. * He and others said the answer will be much more complex than one or two genes. * Prior research has implicated a gene involved in the brain's dopamine communication system. People with a certain variant of the gene start smoking at a younger age, get hooked earlier ^nd find it harder to quit. : The gene in the new study tells ijie body how to make an enzyme * ? 1 called CYP2A6 that breaks down nicotine. Defective forms of this gene lead to a defective version of the enzyme, impairing the body's ability to process nicotine. Everybody inherits two copies of the gene, and the study suggests that getting even one bad copy offers some protection against get ting hooked. Researchers studied 244 nico tine-dependent smokers and 184 people who had tried smoking but never got hooked. The researchers found at least one bad copy of the gene in 12 percent of dependent smokers vs. 19 percent of the others. The difference suggests that bad copies discourage people from getting hooked. The study also found that among the 164 smokers who were hooked on tobacco but not alco hol, those with even one bad copy of the gene smoked fewer ciga rettes, an average of 129 a week vs. 159. This suggests that if scientists can come up with pills that block the action of the CYP2A6 enzyme, the medications could help smok ers cut back, Tyndale said. Such pills might also help smokers avoid relapse if they've quit already, she said. Tyndale said defective copies of the gene could reduce cigarette consumption by making smokers break down nicotine more slowly. Since the nicotine sticks around longer, smokers need fewer ciga rettes to maintain a satisfying nicotine level, she said. As for why the genetic defect would make a person less likely to get hooked, Tyndale noted that nicotine initially makes a neophyte smoker dizzy and nauseous. Peo ple get hooked only if they persist in smoking despite the discomfort, she said. If a person breaks nico tine down unusually slowly, it will stick around and make those ini tial experiences more uncomfort able, making it more likely the per son will give up, she theorized. The hearts own hormone could fight congestive heart failure , EJy JANET McCONNAUGHEY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ! NEW ORLEANS - One of tie heart's own hormones shows {promise in a preliminary study as a drug to fight congestive heart fail ure, a researcher says. Dr. David Vesely, wrf? discov ered the hormone, dubbed it "ves sel dilator," because it widens blood vessels much more than sev eral related hormones. The dila tion reduces blood pressure and rpakes it easier for the heart to pump out blood. '< But it's also a diuretic, increas ing the amount of urine two to 13 times, and tripling or quadrupling aodium excretion in the few patients it's been tested on so far, tie told The Endocrine Society. * People with congestive heart failure often have puffy legs and abdomens. Fluid builds up there fiecause the heart is too weak to pull the fluid through the lungs 2nd into the left side of the heart. / Vessel dilator is stronger than tiie most potent diuretic now on tpe market, Vesely, who presented his findings last week, said Friday. * It's only been tested on six patients so far, with six more used as controls. J .. And, cautioned Dr. Jay Cohn, a cardiologist at the University of Minnesota, "It's a long, long way from identifying a substance to determining whether it can be used to treat a patient." He said the study is interesting, like those of the related hormones. Vesely said vessel dilator has an important difference from its three relatives, two of which he also dis covered. The others' effects are much less in congestive heart failure patients than in normal adults. But this one, he said, is just as effective during heart failure as in normal health. All four are parts of prohor mone, which is created in a number of organs but mostly in the heart. Vessel dilator is from the middle of the amino acid sequences which make up prohormone, he said. "The heart makes more when you have congestive heart failure, but not enough to have the conges tive heart failure go away," Vesely said. But extra vessel dilator, given intravenously, "makes the conges tive heart failure markedly improve and go way over a short period," he said. If larger studies show the same effects, it could be an excellent i drug, said Dr. Pramilla Subrama niam, a cardiologist and associate professor at Louisiana State Uni versity Medical School. "We have so many patients who have heart failure ... anything we can do to improve heart failure conditions is exciting," she said. Giving one drug instead of two "would be a great plus," she said. 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