THURSDAY, Sept. 5, 2002 (HealthDayNews) -- What is a veritable feast one day may turn into poison the next.
With this theory in mind, researchers at Duke University Medical Center believe they've found a way to reverse the effects of long-lasting drugs when it's no longer necessary for them to perform.
The example they used, as published in today's issue of Nature, is reversing the effects of the blood thinner heparin.
The basic element in creating the reversal is to develop a class of antidotes to a specific class of drugs, similar to the way antidotes are created for types of poisons, researchers say. It's especially important for those drugs whose effects must be nullified immediately.
According to a Duke news release, the antidote system came as a result of some inquiries about blood thinners.
Dr. Bruce A. Sullenger, vice chair of surgery at Duke University Medical Center and senior author of the study, says, "While heparin's blood thinning activity can usually be controlled with an existing antidote called protamine, it doesn't always work. It is difficult to administer and is associated with its own set of toxicities."
Heparin is a powerful blood thinner, often given during open heart surgery or after a heart attack.
Drugs called aptamers were used as the antidotes. They are compounds made of nucleic acid that bind directly to a target protein and inhibit the protein's activity.
While the research has only begun, scientists say they believe that aptamers have the potential to cause reversal in the whole class of blood thinning drugs.
More information
The Texas Heart Institute has a good explanation of how blood thinners work.
