"Wonder drug" LDN could help treat cancer, M.S.

Reported by: Ali Gorman
Email: agorman@ccjax.com
Last Update: 2/08 1:47 am

Hundreds of patients swear by it-- a drug that's only approved for heroin addicts, but seems to be helping many more people suffering with all kids of ailments.

So what is it and what do doctors have to say about this so called wonder drug? CBS47's medical reporter Ali Gorman finds out.

Patients hopeful about LDN, still no proven studies

Dr. Daniel Kantor with Shands Jacksonville says we first need to prove LDN is safe, then that it really works.

“I just think […] maybe if he'd been given the chance to use it, he'd still be alive.”

51-year-old Lori Miles lost her brother David when he died of complications from Multiple Sclerosis, or M.S. He was 42-years-old. So when Lori was also diagnosed with M.S., with three young girls to take care of, she was terrified.

“I had problems with my fingers, dropping things. My balance was off,” Miles says.

And over the years, she got worse. She came to depend on a “Hoveround” wheelchair, and couldn't even make it from the bed to the bathroom.

“I had gotten to the point where I couldn't get up out of a chair without my husband helping me.”

But now, that's changed. Lori can walk short distances with a walker. And her previously numb fingers are typing again.

“I have all the feeling back, totally.”

She says she's got her life back, thanks to a little pill. It's called “low dose naltrexone” or LDN. Miles first heard about it from an article in a South Carolina newspaper.

“The results sounded so fantastic and I knew I needed to pursue it more.”

It [was] the first time in four to five months that I had my feet on the ground standing up.

It took Miles months to convince her doctor to write a prescription because the drug is only approved in a higher dose and only for heroin or opium addicts. But it's the low dose form that might be helping hundreds of patients suffering from diseases like Crohns Disease, Alzheimers, some cancers, AIDS, Autism and, like in Miles' case, Multiple Sclerosis.

She even says she saw results overnight.

“It was the next morning. I turned over in bed and put my feet down and stood up and it had been the first time in four to five months that I had my feet on the ground standing up,” she says. “I couldn't believe it.”

“I told her maybe it worked because you wanted it to work. Maybe it was a mental thing,” says Miles’ daughter Jennifer. “But then weeks later, when she was walking around more and getting the feeling back in her fingers, I knew the drug was actually working.”

Even experts, including the head of Shands Jacksonville's M.S. Center Dr. Daniel Kantor, have heard the buzz about LDN.

“There seems to be a lot of hope,” says Kantor. “We hear a lot of great stories, but then when you go to see if the science is behind there, a lot of times the science is lacking.”

Still, Dr. Kantor doesn't rule out the possibility that LDN could help a lot of patients in the future. He says hearing stories about people like Lori Miles should be a “call to arms” to get more money to study the drug that, right now, no big pharmaceutical company is backing.

“I think it's interesting enough that I'd like to see us all write to Congress to ask the [National Institute of Health] to fund more research about LDN,” says Kantor.

Kantor says we first need to prove LDN is safe, then that it really works.

As for Lori, her doctor says there's no significant change in her MRI, meaning her M.S. still appears as it did before she started taking the pill. But there's no denying she feels better. The Miles family would like to see LDN become more accessible to help more people suffering. Because while Lori doesn't know for sure whether it could have saved her brother, she's certain it's saving her.

“It's just been a wonder drug,” she says.

Miles says the only side effect she's noticed is very vivid, sometimes scary dreams. She's been taking LDN for a little more than a year.

Dr. Kantor says he wouldn't take a patient off a proven medication for LDN, but he is open to trying it with those medications for some patients.

Again, there are no large studies to prove LDN is safe and effective for patients with auto-immune diseases. You should always talk with your doctor when considering trying a new medication. This one needs a prescription and has to be specially-made.