LDN Editor’s Blog

From the Desk of David Gluck, MD

Updated: Dec 12, 2011

Time For A Change — December 2011

With only a few weeks remaining in 2011, it’s the right time to look back at some recent LDN accomplishments and to consider even brighter possibilities for the year ahead.

This year brought two outstanding published research reports:

In the spring, Jill P. Smith, M.D., Professor of Gastroenterology at Pennsylvania State University, published her Phase II study on adults with Crohn's disease, “Therapy With the Opioid Antagonist Naltrexone Promotes Mucosal Healing in Active Crohn's Disease: a Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial”.

And this fall saw the publication of the long awaited results from the Mali studies on LDN in HIV/AIDS. Made possible by the extraordinary support of neurologist Dr. Jacqueline McCandless and her husband, Jack Zimmerman, PhD, the resulting data unquestionably demonstrate the power of LDN to maintain the strength of one's immune system even against the withering attack of the HIV virus.

Because considerable past research by others had taught us that every autoimmune disease depends on the presence of a weak, dysfunctional immune system, it was always clear to us that LDN’s mechanism must involve a strengthening/normalization of the immune system. Finally, because of this elegant study from Mali, we are able to unassailably prove the point.

More importantly, the study should bring hope to the tens of millions of people in developing countries who are HIV infected and who, up till now, could look forward only to a short future life with AIDS, along with the unlikely odds of ever receiving needed therapy. Let us hope that health authorities around the globe will pay attention to LDN’s enormous potential here.

Our central goal for LDN always has been for its general endorsement by the field of Medicine. It became clear over time that such recognition could only happen through FDA approval of at least one of LDN’s many capabilities. Which brings me to our hope for 2012.

Many of you may recall our regular announcements about a start-up drug development company, Transparency Life Sciences, which is interested in performing community driven clinical trials (that will include LDN) through the Internet by so-called crowdsourcing. Its preliminary work has now been accomplished and we can expect to experience its launch in the near future. Most exciting is this groundbreaking method’s openness and efficiency – it should have the capability of finally bringing LDN to regulatory approval, and then to patients, without the usual price increases standardly associated with new medications.

It’s now been a quarter-century since my late friend Bernard Bihari, MD, discovered the human uses of LDN treatment. Rather than the world beating a path to his door, this safe and effective medication has been resisted by physicians at every turn, even as LDN has improved the lives of many tens of thousands of people over the years. May 2012 be the year in which low dose naltrexone receives the official recognition it so richly deserves.

Here’s wishing you all a Happy, Healthy and Peaceful New Year.