Botulinum toxin injections for preventing migraine in adults

Cochrane: People with chronic (persisting) migraine treated with botulinum toxin injections had two fewer migraine days per month than people treated with placebo (fake treatment). It is unclear if this improvement was large enough to make a meaningful difference to their lives. More work is needed to show whether botulinum toxin is better than oral treatments (treatments that are swallowed), that prevent migraine. The evidence for botulinum toxin for people with episodic (occasional) migraine was uncertain. Treatment with botulinum toxin did not cause many side effects.

How a poweful toxin invades the body through the intestine

Osaka: A group of researchers from Osaka clarified how botulinum toxin in the intestinal tract invades the body. Though currently used in medicine, and cosmetics to reduce glabeller forehead frown lines, the botulinum neurotoxin, produced by bacterium Clostridium Botulinum is one of the most poisonous biological substances, known to cause fatal food poisoning. This group's research has clarified that hemagglutinin (HA), one of the nontoxic components of a botulinus toxin complex, binds to GP2, a membrane protein expressed on M cells in the intestinal epithelium, by which botulinus toxin invades the body through M cells. This group's achievement could possibly contribute to the development of preventive and therapeutic methods of botulism poisoning. The application of this research may also lead to the development of new transmucosal drug delivery systems and transmucosal vaccines by making use of the invasion mechanism of botulinus toxin.