New Study: Beta-blockers may increase immune cells and improve immune function
New Study: Beta-blockers may increase immune cells and improve immune function
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Though the beta- blockers slow your heart rhythm they can also affect immune cells and improve immune function. Common type drugs used to prevent heart attacks and lower blood pressure may also improve survival rates of people living with melanoma — which is the most deadly type of skin cancer — a study has found. Patients with metastatic melanoma, or melanoma that has grown to other parts of the body, often have a poor prognosis, and while some forms of immunotherapy — treatments that boost the body’s immune system to fight disease — are promising, response rates are less than 35 percent.

The study showed that melanoma patients who received immunotherapy while taking a specific type of beta blocker lived longer than patients who received immunotherapy alone. “Beta blockers slow your heart rhythm but they can also affect immune cells and improve immune function,” stated Todd Schell, Professor at the Pennsylvania State University. 

The result is believed to be the lower stress levels that beta-blockers provide, the researchers said. For the study, published in the journal OncoImmunology, the team analyzed data from 195 metastatic melanoma patients who were treated with immunotherapy. They compared survival between the patients taking beta 1-selective blockers, pan beta blockers and no beta blockers and found that patients taking pan beta blockers lived significantly longer than the others.

Five years after immunotherapy, about 70 percent of patients receiving pan beta blockers were still alive, versus about 25 percent of those taking beta 1-selective blockers or no beta blockers at all.In a follow-up experiment with mice, the researchers saw the same results.The results suggest that reducing physiological stress with beta-blockers can help improve the effectiveness of immunotherapy and survival for melanoma patients.

 

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