University of Basel and University Hospital Basel researchers found that a medicine used to treat multiple sclerosis (MS) also has a favorable influence on the composition of the intestinal flora. On the flip hand, the gut flora also affects which adverse reactions show up while taking the drug. Intestinal flora and the function it plays in MS treatment efficacy and adverse effects has only been the subject of a small number of studies up until now.
Recently, a group of researchers from the University of Basel and the University Hospital Basel looked into these concerns in a sample of 20 people with MS who were using dimethyl fumarate. Professor Adrian Egli, a newcomer to the University of Zurich, and Professor Anne-Katrin Pröbstel, a senior physician in Neurology and study group head, recently released their results in the journal Gut Microbes.
The medicine, marketed under the brand name Tecfidera, works by disrupting the metabolic activities of specific immune cells, hence reducing the frequency of MS attacks. Hot flushes, stomach problems, and sometimes a deficiency of lymphocytes like B cells and T cells in the blood are all possible side effects of the therapy. This can cause serious problems.
The study
Before and after the first year of treatment, researchers analyzed feces and blood samples from patients. The microbiota of the digestive tract was the main focus of their investigation.
Researchers led by Pröbstel checked for lymphopenia by counting the amount of lymphocytes in the blood of their patients.
There were alterations in the gut flora that the research team was able to detect after just three months of treatment. Patients using the drug showed a shift toward a microbiome more typical of those seen in healthy people, as demonstrated by the researchers.
Dimethyl fumarate treatment suppressed the growth of “bad” bacteria while decreasing the numbers of “pro-inflammatory” bacteria that have been linked to multiple sclerosis.
