April 30, 2001 WASHINGTON (AP) - A compound called VIP has been found to cure a form of arthritis in mice, a discovery that could direct new research into the disease in people.
Rheumatoid arthritis afflicts millions of people worldwide, causing painful inflammation and swelling in the joints of the hands and feet. Over time it can be crippling.
A team of Spanish researchers reports that mice with a different form of arthritis were helped by a compound called vasorestrictive intestinal peptide, a combination of amino acids found in the lymph system.
Their results are reported in the May issue of the journal Nature Medicine.
Mice don't get rheumatoid arthritis, so the team led by Mario Delgado of Complutense University in Madrid performed their experiments on mice with another form of the disease, called collagen-induced arthritis.
Treatment with VIP significantly reduced the incidence and severity of the disease, they reported, eliminating joint swelling and damage to connective tissue.
Delgado said collagen-induced arthritis is the animal version of the disease most similar to human rheumatoid arthritis. Most drugs used at this time for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis in humans have been previously tested in collagen-induced version, he said.
The next step is to do safety testing of VIP, Delgado said, noting that researchers at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, are doing safety tests of the drug in patients with a chronic inflammatory disorder in the lung.
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
