According to new research, an asthma medication montelukast (Singulair) could be effective at counteracting diabetic retinopathy, an eye disease.
Researchers from the University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine found that montelukast (Singulair) can inhibit diabetic retinopathy.
The study was conducted on mice with diabetes, which received montelukast to measure the pathology of the retina caused by diabetes. There was another group of mice with diabetes, which did not receive montelukast.
The researchers reported that after nine months of evaluation, the retinal microvasculature of the diabetic mice that did not receive montelukast had a greater degree of degeneration than those that received the asthma medication. The authors wrote in Diabetes, “Montelukast inhibited the diabetes-induced capillary and neuronal degeneration, whether administered as a prevention strategy, immediately following induction of diabetes, or as an intervention strategy.”
