Appetite hormone promises breakthrough in treating blood disease: New Zealand researchers

An appetite-regulating hormone could provide a breakthrough in treating a potentially fatal disease that is now treated with amputations, according to New Zealand and Japanese research out Thursday.

The study suggested that the hormone ghrelin could be used clinically for the early treatment of critical limb ischemia (CLI), an advanced form of peripheral artery disease.

CLI was the severe obstruction of blood flow to the extremities that often required major amputations and in half of all cases leads to death within five years, said researchers from New Zealand's University of Otago.

It was characterized by pain at rest, non-healing ulcers and gangrene, and its leading risk factors were diabetes, obesity and age.

The study found that administering ghrelin daily over two weeks on a mouse model of the disease markedly improved blood flow in affected limbs.

They found that ghrelin promoted growth of new structurally and functionally normal blood vessels, improved cell survival, and decreased tissue fibrosis.

The findings were exciting as currently there were no drugs treatments for CLI and other techniques were effective in only half of the cases, Dr Rajesh Katare said in a statement.

"Our team has previously shown that ghrelin showed promise for treating the presently incurable lung disease known as pulmonary hypertension, which is caused by blood vessels becoming progressively blocked," he said.

The results provided a platform to look at the long-term potential of ghrelin to see if it could become a standard treatment for CLI, Katare said. Enditem