People with diabetes are prone to develop nerve damage that causes numbness, tingling or pain - which may reduce awareness of skin damage and lead to serious infections and ulcers. Now, a new drug may improve this situation, Japanese researchers report.

They found that fidarestat improves the perception of vibrations from a tuning fork, as well as symptoms, in patients with diabetes-related nerve damage, according to a report in the research journal Clinical Drug Investigation.

Dr. Nigishi Hotta from Nagoya University School of Medicine Japan and colleagues used a tuning fork to examine the effects of fidarestat on the vibration perception threshold of the arms, hands, legs and feet of 22 affected patients.

Fidarestat treatment for 24 weeks significantly improved the ability to feel the vibrations in all areas, the researchers report.

Fidarestat also reduced problems with numbness, coldness and hot flushes, spontaneous pain, and pain causing difficulty in walking, the investigators note.

After treatment, there were also improvements in patients’ sense of heaviness in the foot, the feeling of walking on sand or on an uneven surface, and dizziness.

“These results indicate that fidarestat is a potentially clinically useful agent” for the treatment of diabetic nerve damage, Hotta’s team concludes.

SOURCE: Clinical Drug Investigation, November 2004.