glucocorticoids - increase CNS inflammation?

[Guest guest]

Wanted to review the work of one of my fav neuroscientists,

Sapolsky today... among other things, he investigates how hippocampal

cell death occurs and I do work on how the hippocampus works

and " breaks " at a " higher " level -- he does cellular stuff, I do

functional/systems level stuff.

ANYWAY, came across the abstract to one of his papers and thought folks

here might be interested in it -- it suggests an interesting mechanism

why folks with MS and other CNS-related diseases have what are often

understood to be " contradictory " reactions to steroids... It is

sufficiently intriguing that I am actually considering spending the $30

to get the full text online. Without further ado, I present:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?

cmd=Retrieve & db=pubmed & dopt=Abstract & list_uids=12476346 & query_hl=16

[Guest guest]

Interesting.. corticoid steroids enhancing inflammation?

In veterinary medicine, there is codition in the horse called 'founder'

where the blood supply to the delicate micro vessels to the hoof is

congested or interupted.. (sometimes from the wrong feed- not the

proper gut bugs) which then causes inflammation in the hoof that

unchecked starts to alter the structure of the lattice work holding the

petal bone within the hoof.

(Thats bone is only anout 3/4 of an inch up inside the sole of the hoof.

If the support structures, fail the bone actually comes out the bottonm

of the hoof (like way painfull for the horse) and euthanasia is the

only humane thing at that point.

Veterinary medicine has found that steroids are contraindicated....

If you get the full paper, please report what you think they think the

mechanism might be that increases the inflammation.....

Thanks,

Barb

J Neurovirol. 2002 Dec;8(6):513-28.

Glucocorticoids and central nervous system inflammation.

Dinkel K, Ogle WO, Sapolsky RM.

Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford,

California, USA. kdinkel12@...

Glucocorticoids (GCs) are well known for their anti-inflammatory and

immunosuppressive properties in the periphery and are therefore widely

and successfully used in the treatment of autoimmune diseases, chronic

inflammation, or transplant rejection. This led to the assumption that

GCs are uniformly anti-inflammatory in the periphery and the central

nervous system (CNS). As a consequence, GCs are also used in the

treatment of CNS inflammation. There is abundant evidence that an

inflammatory reaction is mounted within the CNS following trauma,

stroke, infection, and seizure, which can augment the brain damage.

However an increasing number of studies indicate that the concept of

GCs being universally immunosuppressive might be oversimplified. This

article provides a review of the current literature, showing that under

certain circumstances GCs might fail to have anti-inflammatory effects

and sometimes even enhance inflammation.

Publication Types:

Review

PMID: 12476346 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

> Wanted to review the work of one of my fav neuroscientists,

> Sapolsky today... among other things, he investigates how hippocampal

> cell death occurs and I do work on how the hippocampus works

> and " breaks " at a " higher " level -- he does cellular stuff, I do

> functional/systems level stuff.

>

> ANYWAY, came across the abstract to one of his papers and thought

folks

> here might be interested in it -- it suggests an interesting

mechanism

> why folks with MS and other CNS-related diseases have what are often

> understood to be " contradictory " reactions to steroids... It is

> sufficiently intriguing that I am actually considering spending the

$30

> to get the full text online. Without further ado, I present:

>

> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?

> cmd=Retrieve & db=pubmed & dopt=Abstract & list_uids=12476346 & query_hl=16