Why a chemical found in worms could hold the key to reducing epileptic seizures A chemical found in worms could hold the key to stopping seizures in people with drug-resistant epilepsy. The 200,000 Britons […]

A chemical found in worms could hold the key to stopping seizures in people with drug-resistant epilepsy.

The 200,000 Britons with untreatable epilepsy have been given hope of a cure after scientists identified a protein in worms that significantly reduces seizures in rats.

Assuming the chemical has the same effect in humans the researchers say an effective treatment could be available on the NHS within a decade.

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“We are very excited by this – it’s a clever way of suppressing seizures,” Dimitri Kullman

“We are very excited by this – it’s a clever way of suppressing seizures. Getting this into the NHS will be a long drawn out process but we’re very optimistic,” said lead researcher Dimitri Kullmann, a professor of neurology at University College London.

What causes epileptic fits

Seizures are triggered by burst of electrical activity in the brain, when too many neurons fire at the same time and it becomes overexcited.

About 600,000 people in the UK have epilepsy. A third of them are resistant to existing drugs and about half of them – or 100,000 people – could benefit from the new drug, Prof Kullmann estimates.

These could potentially include people with the same kind of epilepsy as Alfie Dingley, the 6-year old boy who recently hit the headlines over whether banned cannabis oil could be imported to sooth his condition, he said.

Some of the most severe cases of epilepsy experience as many as 150 seizures a month and about a thousand people in the UK die every year from them.

The research is published in the journal Nature Medicine.

Positive reaction

Experts in the field, who were not involved in this project, said the findings were extremely promising – although they cautioned that there was still some way to go before they could be declared effective and safe for humans.

“This is a really exciting, new approach to the treatment of epilepsy,” said Professor Bruno Frenguelli, of the University of Warwick and chair of Epilepsy Research UK’s scientific advisory committee.

Professor Mark Cunningham, of Trinity College, Dublin, added: “It’s very encouraging and very exciting work”.

“It’s very encouraging and very exciting work,” Mark Cunningham

Dr Giovanna Lalli, of The Wellcome Trust, which funded the study, said “Drug-resistant epilepsy is a very difficult condition to treat … but these are promising results that could lead to a new therapy with the potential to transform the lives of many epilepsy patients,” he said.

Ley Sander, medical director at Epilepsy Society and professor of neurology at University College London said: “This is a very exciting piece of work offering great hope in the future for people with focal epilepsy that does not respond to conventional treatment.”

‘There is still a long way to go. At the moment results have only been shown in animal models and it is important that this is now translated into humans.

But in the future, this type of gene therapy could be used in parts of the brain which are critical for cognitive functions and movement and may also be used where seizures occur in multiple parts of the brain,” he said.