A side effect of the drugs used to treat schizophrenia is tardive dyskinesia (TO); uncontrollable facial movements.In an animal study by Indian researchers, NO~increasing compounds such as L-arginine blocked experimentally induced TD. The study indicated “the potential of NO donors as a possible therapeutic option” in TD, concluded the researchers in the journal Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior.
Sickle Cell Anemia: Can NO Help?
This inherited and not curable disease warps the round shape of oxygencarrying red blood cells into rigid, sticky “sicklesu-curved slices of cells, like crescent moons. The misshapen cells snag and stall in the bloodstream, choking the flow of blood and oxygen and producing the disease’s main symptoms: intense pain and damage to multiple organs.”Endothelial dysfunction and impaired nitric oxide bioavailability have been implicat~B in the pathogenesis~.\~Idisease progression] O’f’ sickle cell anemia,” wrote researchers from the Boston University School of Medicine in a study in the Journal of Cellular Physiology. In particular, they noted, this reduced bioavailablliry of NO can lead to pulmonary hypertension (high blood pressure in the arteries that supply the lungs), which occurs in 30 to 40 percent of people with sickle cell anemia.
And in a paper in the record Free Radical Biology and Medicine looking at the links between sickle cell anemia and NO, scientists from the National Institutes of Health determine that the “bioinactivation of NO” in the condition brings about tighter blood vessels, less blood flow, more blood clotting) and end-organ injury. Among the apparent keys to more efficient management of the disease: “increase NO bioavailahiliry,” wrote the scientists.
Skin Diseases: Less Sun Damage with NO?
“It has become clear that this extraordinary molecular messenger [NO] plays a vital role in the skin, orchestrating normal regulatory processes,” noted a team of French researchers in the medical journal Nitric Oxide. The scientists detailed the many roles NO performs in the skin, including:
• Keratinocytes, the main cells in the epidermis, the outer layer of skin, “express” iNOS, one of the three nitric oxide synthase enzymes that trigger the production of NO. (And, they added, “under certain conditions virtually all skin cells appear to be capable of expressing” iNOS.)
• NO is important in the upkeep of the “barrier function”-the all-important role of the skin in keeping out unwanted germs and toxins.
• NO may help safeguard keratinocytes from damage and death from the sun’s UV radiation.
• When the skin is wounded, NO helps advice the healing press, leading immune cells to the wound site.
“NO production,” they concluded, seems “to play a significant part in coordinating the skin’s unique adaptability and function.”
Stomach Ulcers: NO for Prevention and Healing
Polish researchers discovered that pretreatment with NO enhancing compounds could prevent stomach ulcers in stressed rats. The findings were in the Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology. And an animal study by Canadian researchers released in the Arnerican Journal of Physiology: Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology-found that NO generation was key in the recovery of stomach ulcers.
