Medical school participates in Parkinson's study

the SIU School of Medicine will participate in a large-scale national clinical trial
to learn if the nutritional supplement creatine can slow the progression of Parkinson's disease.

While creatine is not an approved therapy for Parkinson's Disease or any other condition, it is widely thought to improve exercise performance. The potential benefit of creatine for Parkinson's Disease was identified by Parkinson's researchers through a new rapid method for screening potential compounds. The trial is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase III study is one of the largest Parkinson's Disease clinical trials to date. The SIU School of Medicine is one of 51 medical centers in the United States and Canada that will be recruiting patients as part of an effort to enroll 1720 people with early-stage PD.

"This study is an important step. We are pleased to have so many sites participating in this study,
which may help us move more quickly toward developing a therapy that could change the course of
this devastating disease,” says Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, director of the NIH. "The goal is to improve
the quality of life for people with Parkinson's for a longer period of time than is possible with existing
therapies.” Currently there is no treatment that has been shown to slow the progression of Parkinson's Disease.

The trial is the first large study in a series of NIH-sponsored clinical trials called NET-PD (NIH
Exploratory Trials in Parkinson's Disease). SIU School of Medicine has been affiliated with the
program since 2003. The NIH has organized this large network of sites to allow researchers to work
with Parkinson's Disease patients over a long period of time, with a goal of finding effective and lasting treatments.