Health News
Prozac may benefit patients with multiple sclerosis
By DPA
May 12, 2008, 3:07 GMT

Amsterdam - Prozac can delay the symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a study by Dutch researchers from the Royal University of Groningen published in the British Medical Journal, Dutch media reported recently.

The researchers tested the medicine against depression in a so- called double-blind study on a group of patients suffering from MS.

Half of the group was given Prozac, the other half was not.

Every four weeks, the group underwent a brain scan to see if any new inflammations - a sign of progressing MS - were found.

After eight weeks, the patients administered a placebo had more inflammations than those given Prozac.

At the end of the study, after 24 weeks, two-thirds of the people who had been administered Prozac did not have any new inflammations, compared with 25 per cent of the people given a placebo.

More than 1 million people worldwide suffer from MS, a disease of the central nervous system.

The disease is progressive, which means the patient's condition decreases irrevocably, step by step.

The symptoms the patient suffers from depend on which parts of the central nervous system have been affected.