Latest news with #Goadsby
Miami Herald
17-05-2025
- Health
- Miami Herald
Drug said to be effective against early migraine symptoms
May 14 (UPI) -- Migraines don't just cause headaches. These attacks often are accompanied by symptoms like light and sound sensitivity, nausea, neck pain and dizziness. What's more, those non-headache symptoms tend to crop up before a full-fledged migraine headache takes root. But now, researchers say they've discovered an already approved migraine drug that can stop these other symptoms hours before a headache starts. Ubrogepant successfully warded off early migraine symptoms in patients who took the drug one to six hours before a headache, causing a 72% increased likelihood a person wouldn't experience light sensitivity and an 85% increased likelihood they wouldn't have fatigue. Doubled likelihood they wouldn't experience neck pain or sound sensitivity. The drug also helped people think and concentrate better despite their oncoming migraine, researchers reported Monday in Nature Medicine. The results suggest that ubrogepant could "free patients from a disabling part of migraine," study co-author Dr. Peter Goadsby, a neuroscientist at King's College London, told Nature. Ubrogepant gained approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2019 after studies showed that it reduced headache pain and other migraine symptoms within two hours of taking the pill, according to The drug works by blocking a protein involved in pain and migraines called calcitonin gene-related peptide, or CGRP. Ubrogepant prevents the CGRP protein from attaching to nerve endings. Symptoms that occur prior to a migraine are called "prodome" symptoms. Migraines occur when a brain region called the hypothalamus goes out of whack, and these prodomal symptoms precede the headache. "Not enough attention has been given to prodrome symptoms," Goadsby said, noting that the new study was mean to "fill this gap." For the study, researchers recruited 438 people who could reliably predict oncoming migraine attacks based on their prodomal symptoms. People were randomly assigned to take either ubrogepant or a placebo just before a migraine attack and keep notes on their symptoms. They then waited for their next migraine and took the opposite treatment, be it the medicine or placebo. Participants didn't know what they were taking either time. Patients taking Ubrogepant reported: • Better ability to concentrate within an hour • Reduced light sensitivity within two hours • Reduced fatigue and neck pain after three hours • Reduced sound sensitivity after four hours However, it is essential that people take the drug before their headache if they want to stop these other symptoms, Goadsby said. "People who know their migraine would benefit more from this medicine," he said, arguing that doctors should train patients to detect early migraine symptoms so they can judge when to take ubrogepant. More information Cleveland Clinic has more on migraines. Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved. Copyright 2025 UPI News Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Drug said to be effective against early migraine symptoms
May 14 (UPI) -- Migraines don't just cause headaches. These attacks often are accompanied by symptoms like light and sound sensitivity, nausea, neck pain and dizziness. What's more, those non-headache symptoms tend to crop up before a full-fledged migraine headache takes root. But now, researchers say they've discovered an already approved migraine drug that can stop these other symptoms hours before a headache starts. Ubrogepant successfully warded off early migraine symptoms in patients who took the drug one to six hours before a headache, causing a 72% increased likelihood a person wouldn't experience light sensitivity and an 85% increased likelihood they wouldn't have fatigue. Doubled likelihood they wouldn't experience neck pain or sound sensitivity. The drug also helped people think and concentrate better despite their oncoming migraine, researchers reported Monday in Nature Medicine. The results suggest that ubrogepant could "free patients from a disabling part of migraine," study co-author Dr. Peter Goadsby, a neuroscientist at King's College London, told Nature. Ubrogepant gained approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2019 after studies showed that it reduced headache pain and other migraine symptoms within two hours of taking the pill, according to The drug works by blocking a protein involved in pain and migraines called calcitonin gene-related peptide, or CGRP. Ubrogepant prevents the CGRP protein from attaching to nerve endings. Symptoms that occur prior to a migraine are called "prodome" symptoms. Migraines occur when a brain region called the hypothalamus goes out of whack, and these prodomal symptoms precede the headache. "Not enough attention has been given to prodrome symptoms," Goadsby said, noting that the new study was mean to "fill this gap." For the study, researchers recruited 438 people who could reliably predict oncoming migraine attacks based on their prodomal symptoms. People were randomly assigned to take either ubrogepant or a placebo just before a migraine attack and keep notes on their symptoms. They then waited for their next migraine and took the opposite treatment, be it the medicine or placebo. Participants didn't know what they were taking either time. Patients taking Ubrogepant reported: • Better ability to concentrate within an hour • Reduced light sensitivity within two hours • Reduced fatigue and neck pain after three hours • Reduced sound sensitivity after four hours However, it is essential that people take the drug before their headache if they want to stop these other symptoms, Goadsby said. "People who know their migraine would benefit more from this medicine," he said, arguing that doctors should train patients to detect early migraine symptoms so they can judge when to take ubrogepant. More information Cleveland Clinic has more on migraines. Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Scientific American
14-05-2025
- Health
- Scientific American
Migraine Drug Ubrogepant Tackles Debilitating Early Symptoms
Scientists have shown that a drug approved to treat migraine headaches can also alleviate debilitating non-headache symptoms, such as fatigue, brain fog and blinding light sensitivity, that occur as the migraine is starting. The drug — called ubrogepant — is already known to stop the onset of a full-blown migraine attack in some people if they take it when the headache begins. But a phase III clinical trial, described in Nature Medicine on 12 May, shows that it can also tackle the 'prodrome' symptoms that arrive hours or even days earlier. The results suggest that ubrogepant could 'free patients from a disabling part of migraine,' says study co-author Peter Goadsby, a neuroscientist at King's College London. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. Early intervention The process of a migraine starts long before the head pain, when brain circuits involving the hypothalamus — a region that regulates several vital bodily functions — become dysregulated. In the prodrome, or premonitory phase, people can experience various unpleasant symptoms, including fatigue, neck pain, an aversion to light (photophobia) or sound (phonophobia) and difficulty concentrating. 'Not enough attention has been given to prodrome symptoms,' says Goadsby. The trial aimed to 'fill this gap' by investigating whether ubrogepant has an effect on the initial stages of a migraine. The trial included 438 participants who could reliably identify incoming migraine attacks from their prodromal symptoms. During the 60 days of the trial, they took ubrogepant or a placebo whenever they felt any prodromal symptoms coming on, and reported whether doing this had any effect. The results suggest that for some participants, the drug increased their ability to concentrate one hour after treatment, reduced their photophobia two hours after treatment and reduced their fatigue and neck pain after three hours. But the 'effect sizes were small' and never more than 15 percentage points compared with the placebo, points out Gregory Dussor, a neuroscientist and migraine specialist at the University of Texas at Dallas. For example, 27% of participants who took ubrogepant reported an absence of fatigue, compared with 17% who took the placebo. Dussor suggests this modest improvement is because the class of drugs to which ubrogepant belongs is a 'life-changing therapeutic' for a minority of people — perhaps only one in five, according to some studies. It makes little difference to others, so its effect for that minority 'gets diluted in the data'. 'Nevertheless, this study answers the question of whether ubrogepant works when you dose it early in the migraine, when people feel prodromal symptoms coming on,' he says. Know your migraine Ubrogepant is already known to stop migraine headaches, but Goadsby says the data show that it works substantially better if taken in the prodromal stage rather than once the attack starts. In the trial, it was crucial that participants could predict their preliminary symptoms. 'People who know their migraine would benefit more from this medicine,' he says. The next challenge for the field, he adds, is to train people to understand their migraine symptoms so they can judge when to take ubrogepant. Dussor thinks that once the prodrome has begun, it is probably still too late for ubrogepant to block the migraine entirely. He says research should explore another question: 'Is there some way to alert people much earlier to take the drug, before they feel symptoms coming on?' The study could also provide clues about the cause of prodromal symptoms. Ubrogepant works by blocking receptors that bind to calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), a molecule that sensitizes the nerves in the head and skull during a migraine attack. 'Knowing there's some CGRP component earlier than the headache phase is important to know in our mechanistic understanding of migraine,' says Dussor.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
This Drug Reduces Symptoms Before a Migraine Strikes, Study Shows
A migraine drug called ubrogepant doesn't just reduce the severity of a migraine attack – it also dials down the non-headache symptoms in the prodrome: the hours leading up to the main event. That's the conclusion reached after a large clinical trial tested hundreds of migraine patients taking the medication at the onset of prodrome symptoms. The result suggests that ubrogepant might be effective for treating the entire migraine as it evolves, rather than just the head pain – and narrows down the mechanisms behind the condition. Migraine is a neurological affliction that affects an estimated 14 to 15 percent of the global population, yet it remains poorly understood, and difficult to treat effectively. It's known for its searing, debilitating head pain, but the anatomy of a migraine is much more complex and longer-lasting than just the head pain. Broadly, a migraine consists of three to four stages: the prodrome, during which the patient experiences symptoms such as light sensitivity, nausea, neck pain, and brain fog; aura, characterized by vision disturbances, including blind spots and flashing lights; the headache attack itself; and the postdrome, characterized by brain fog and fatigue. Put together, this sequence of events can last up to more than a week. It's quite unpleasant. Most treatments focus on the headache portion, since it's the most debilitating. Even studies on treatments designed to be taken during the prodrome phase have concentrated on blocking the headache, rather than treating the prodrome itself. Led by neurologist Peter Goadsby of Kings College London, a team of researchers has now conducted a trial on whether or not ubrogepant, a migtainte treatment available in the US under the brand name Ubrelvy, also works on the prodrome. Scientists want to know not just how to treat the entirety of a migraine – although that's a desired goal – but to help determine what drives a migraine attack. "It has long been argued whether migraine is primarily a disease of the brain or of peripheral, specifically vascular, origin," the researchers write in their paper. "The new data firmly support a brain origin for migraine attacks." Ubrogepant is a drug that does not prevent migraine attacks, but reduces the severity of the pain associated with an attack. It belongs to a class of drugs called calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) receptor antagonists. Ubrogepant, and other drugs belonging to the same class, block the action of CGRP, a peptide associated with migraine. Goadsby and his colleagues recruited hundreds of migraine patients for a double-blind study. The 438 study participants, aged between 18 and 75, and all with at least a one-year history of migraine, were put in groups. One group was given ubrogepant at the onset of prodrome symptoms; the other was given a placebo. Then, during a second event at least seven days later, the groups switched. The patients initially given the drug were given the placebo, and vice versa. Neither the researchers nor the participants knew which group was receiving which. After taking the drug or the placebo, the participants were tasked with reporting changes in their symptoms, which included photo- and phonophobia, dizziness, fatigue, neck pain or stiffness, and brain fog. The patients taking the drug experienced a significantly higher reduction in their symptoms than the patients taking the placebo. One hour after taking ubrogepant, patients reported brain fog easing. After two hours, photophobia, or sensitivity to light, decreased. After three hours, neck problems eased. Between four and 24 hours after taking the drug, phonophobia (sensitivity to sound) and dizziness lessened, too. These results suggest that CGRP receptor antagonists might be effective at treating prodromal migraine symptoms, the researchers say. "As premonitory symptoms can be disabling, their treatment alone is clinically relevant, beyond the consideration that treatment during the prodrome prevents headache onset and improves function over 24 to 48 hours, as demonstrated in the primary analysis of the study," the researchers write. In addition: "Broadly, the findings of the clinical trial support imaging studies that have identified central nervous system sites as the locus of initiation of a migraine attack." There are several routes forward from here. The study didn't look at the effects of ubrogepant on the aura and postdrome phases of migraine, which could warrant further investigation. Future work could also probe further to try and narrow down the cause of migraine, and determine whether CGRP receptor antagonists might offer relief for the entire course of a migraine event. The research has been published in Nature Medicine. Shingles Vaccine Can Reduce Risk of Stroke And Heart Attack, Study Finds Spikes of Bird Flu in Cats Could Be a Warning of a Future Pandemic HIV Drugs Dramatically Lower Risk of Alzheimer's Disease, Study Finds
