Possible Health Benefits Of Cyclodextrin

An interesting article contains the following excerpt:

As researchers rolled out data on cyclodextrin, a couple named Chris and Hugh Hempel in Reno, Nevada, paid close attention. In 2007, their twin daughters, Addi and Cassi, then three years old, were diagnosed with NPC (Niemann-Pick type C disease is a genetically caused lysosomal storage disease that affects metabolism). As doctors repeatedly told them there was nothing to be done, the parents kept digging into the research and looking for a cure. 

They found cyclodextrin and initially tried using it in oral doses, which is known to be safe. However, the chemical couldn’t effectively reach the brain that way. The couple made headlines with their tireless efforts to get drug companies, the FDA, and doctors to let them try out intravenous treatments of cyclodextrin for their twins—and they won. Regular treatments gradually improved—although didn’t cure—the twins’ conditions. Cyclodextrin is now in clinical trials to treat other kids with NPC. 

Meanwhile, in 2010, Latz and colleagues published a study in Nature showing that cholesterol crystals, which accumulate along arteries when there’s too much cholesterol in the blood stream, can trigger inflammation. The immune response then produces a snowball effect eventually leading to the development of plaques—layers of cholesterol crystals, immune cells, and calcified lesions in the artery wall. Upon reading the study, Chris Hempel contacted Latz and told him about their experience with cyclodextrin clearing cholesterol from cells. Perhaps the sweet chemical could also clear it from plaques. 

In mice fed high-cholesterol diets, cyclodextrin cleared away plaques and helped prevent more plaques from forming, Latz and his colleagues found. The chemical also activated cholesterol metabolism that boosted clearance of the waxy substance from arteries, plus dampened inflammation responses that spur atherosclerosis. 

Using blood vessel tissue from human patients with atherosclerosis, researchers found that cyclodextrin induced the same changes in the human cells as it did in the mice.