Updates and News
Research Finding Could Revolutionize Asthma Treatment
Use of Beta Blockers May Have Long-Term Benefits
SAN FRANCISCO, California, February 25, 2009: The American Asthma Foundation announced a research breakthrough suggesting that, contrary to popular belief, drugs commonly used to treat high blood pressure may also bring relief to many asthma sufferers.
Dean Smith, Executive Director of the American Asthma Foundation (AAF), said, “Drugs known as beta blockers have long been used to treat high blood pressure. However, they have historically been forbidden for patients with asthma, because they may make the symptoms worse. Now, however, results from a research study funded by the American Asthma Foundation suggest that, over the long run, asthma may well improve with low daily doses of beta blockers.”
The findings were published January 26, 2009 on www.pnas.org, the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, a prestigious scientific journal. The lead investigator, Dr. Richard Bond, and his colleagues demonstrated the absence of asthma-like symptoms in laboratory mice that do not have the
very receptor that is inhibited by beta blockers. This finding was in agreement with earlier studies by Bond and his colleagues showing that low doses of beta blockers improved asthma in mice.
Expanding on his description of Dr. Bond’s findings, Mr. Smith comments, “Dr. Bond’s research has used an approach he calls ‘paradoxical pharmacology,’ which simply means that patients may be treated with medicines that may initially worsen symptoms, but over the long run may lead to overall health improvement.” Dr. Bond’s studies led to a small clinical trial of beta blockers with humans, and a second human clinical trial is currently under way using the high blood pressure drug nadolol in patients with mild asthma.
Ms. Marion O. Sandler, Chairman of the Board of the American Asthma Foundation, points out that “Dr. Bond’s findings are especially important at the present time, because there is a great need for new treatments for asthma.” In December 2008, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel recommended that the FDA ban two inhaled drugs for use in asthma, because studies had shown an increased risk of hospitalization and asthma-related deaths. Notably, these two drugs have the opposite effect of beta blockers. Specifically, they clearly improve asthma in the short run, but if taken for long periods they may actually be harmful.
Dr. Bond is a Professor in the Department of Pharmacological and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Houston, Houston. In 2003, he received a three-year early excellence award from the American Asthma Foundation. The AAF sponsors research that investigates new theories about the underlying causes of asthma with the goal of improving treatment and preventing and curing the disease. Dr. Bond’s colleagues included researchers at the University of Houston Department of Pharmacology, Baylor College of Medicine, and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
