DMSO: neurodegenerative diseases, mental health and development

Dr Peter F. Mayer, tkp.at

DMSO helps as a therapy for a surprisingly large number of diseases and problems. In a three-part series, today we look at neurodegenerative diseases and mental health.

A Midwestern Doctor (AMD) summarises the evidence in a recent article on his platform. At more than 152,000 characters, the article turned out extremely long this time, which is why it is presented in three independent parts. The first part (German) covered the basic mode of action of DMSO, the second part (German) its use in neurological emergencies and pain. Part 3 is now about neurodegeneration, mental health and development.

Despite decades of research and billions in investment, there is no cure for the major neurodegenerative diseases. The available drugs at best slow their course – and often not even that. The amyloid hypothesis has swallowed decades and billions without delivering a breakthrough. According to the source, around 500 studies support the use of DMSO in this area.

Important on application: while oral and topical use can help in neurodegenerative diseases, the clearest effects are seen with IV DMSO.

Why DMSO is plausible here at all comes down to three mechanisms that work together in these diseases:

• Improved microcirculation – many neurodegenerative processes involve impaired blood flow to the brain and impaired venous and lymphatic drainage, so that toxins and misfolded proteins are left behind.
• Anti-inflammatory action – chronic neuroinflammation is a common denominator of Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, MS and ALS.
• Chemical chaperone function – DMSO stabilises proteins in their correct shape and dissolves misfolded aggregates.

Parkinson’s

Parkinson’s disease is caused by the progressive loss of dopamine-producing neurons in the substantia nigra. The available drugs temporarily replace dopamine – but none stops the progression.

Animal data: DMSO repeatedly counteracted every neurotoxin used – MPTP, rotenone, 6-OHDA and paraquat, one of the strongest known environmental risk factors. It protected the dopamine-producing neurons and the surrounding tissue. In the laboratory, DMSO reversed the complete blockade of microtubule assembly caused by rotenone – a finding of direct relevance, since microtubule disruption impairs axonal transport and contributes to the death of dopaminergic neurons.

Epidemiological data: a case-control study found that people with early-onset Parkinson’s had been exposed to DMSO one tenth as often as healthy controls. Notably, the same study found that pesticide exposure clearly increased the risk – consistent with the epidemiological literature. AMD points out that such association studies must be interpreted with caution, but the direction is consistent.

Limitations that AMD himself names:

• DMSO will help a subgroup of Parkinson’s patients, not all of them – it is worth a try, but its effectiveness is lower than in ALS.
• Overdosing can be counterproductive. A cell study found that concentrations far above normal use accelerated the clumping of alpha-synuclein (although this did not occur in mice).
• In many cases oral DMSO may not be enough, while IV DMSO can help.
• A combination with other active substances may be necessary.

This last limitation is important and often overlooked: AMD describes a case in which a research scientist with Parkinson’s systematically tested his optimal dose and, at that dose, saw bradykinesia eliminated, pain and dystonia reduced by 80% and stiffness by 50% – while higher doses made him worse. That is a pattern that should not occur with a “miracle cure”, but may well occur with a biologically active molecule with biphasic effects.

Alzheimer’s and dementia

After decades of research focused almost exclusively on removing amyloid plaques, the expensive amyloid drugs have largely failed – with considerable side effects. DMSO addresses three core factors: reduced blood flow, inflammation and protein folding. Around 190 studies support its use in dementia.

Human studies:

• In 18 Moldovan patients with probable Alzheimer’s disease, DMSO improved memory, concentration, communication and orientation – visible after three months, especially pronounced after six.
• A leading DMSO neurology researcher also reported improved cognitive function in Alzheimer’s patients after six months of treatment.
• A Japanese review from the 1980s reported that DMSO had been used to dissolve amyloid deposits, with one report of partial improvement in motor function.

Animal models: in streptozotocin-treated rats, amyloid-injected rats, genetically modified mice and worms, DMSO improved learning and memory, reduced brain inflammation, increased the connections between neurons and extended lifespan. In worms, it delayed amyloid-induced paralysis by 48 to 98%. In rats with chronically restricted blood flow to the brain – a model of vascular dementia – it prevented the memory loss that otherwise follows. More than a hundred additional studies found that active substances given in DMSO did the same.

Anecdotal reports: after two weeks of oral DMSO, a reader’s aunt who had not spoken for over a year began to speak again. The 93-year-old mother of another reader, who had had dementia for 15 years, stopped sundowning and regained her personality.

Multiple sclerosis

MS causes the immune system to gradually destroy the myelin that insulates the nerves of the brain and spinal cord. Existing therapies suppress the immune attack – but do not restore lost myelin.

Studies:

• In a Russian study of 34 MS patients from 1984, DMSO achieved a “very positive result”, especially in relapsing-remitting MS.
• In 35 MS patients, DMSO gels were recommended for chronic neuropathic and spasticity-related pain. In MS patients with trigeminal neuralgia, DMSO made it possible to reduce or stop carbamazepine.
• In the standard animal models of MS, numerous active substances given in DMSO improved clinical scores, reduced inflammation and promoted remyelination.
• In cell studies, DMSO promotes the production of myelin-forming cells and inhibits the problematic clotting triggered by myelin debris.

Cases from the literature: Stanley Jacob gave oral DMSO to a 29-year-old woman paralysed by MS – and she walked again. His description: “Her improvement was dramatic, as dramatic as any benefit I have ever seen.” Six years later she was still walking, driving and looking after her family. A Californian woman, bedridden in the foetal position and thought to be dying, regained leg movement and the ability to feed herself over a year of DMSO treatment.

Readers’ reports: a reader’s wife, who had not had a pain-free day for a year and a half because of MS-related trigeminal neuralgia, saw her pain drop by 90% after testing a 70% DMSO cream on a small area of skin – and after applying it over the whole trigeminal area was “99.9%” pain-free the next morning, with no return of the pain after a three-day break. Two readers reported that DMSO had stopped their “MS hugs” (the painful band-like squeezing of the torso) – one of whom had previously had to “just endure it or go to hospital for morphine”. A reader who was diagnosed with MS 34 years ago and now takes DMSO every morning has stopped every pharmaceutical drug (including over-the-counter NSAIDs) and feels “fabulous”.

ALS

ALS progressively kills the motor neurons that control voluntary movement – typically fatal within two to five years, often by suffocation. The few approved drugs extend survival only slightly.

AMD admits that the formal research here is very thin:

• In ALS mice, long-term oral DMSO increased survival and improved motor function.
• In cells, DMSO stabilises SOD1 – the protein whose misfolding drives many ALS cases.
• Stanley Jacob treated ALS patients with DMSO; one reported “instant, overnight and slightly delayed miracles of the therapy” before his doctor forbade further treatment.

Readers’ reports: an Air Force veteran with terminal ALS, who had already ordered a wheelchair, reported that his brain fog had disappeared, his breathing crises had stopped within three days and his reflexes had recovered – and he eventually dragged 340-pound beams across a road. In a recent video he walks up a steep gravel slope carrying two heavy buckets of gravel. Notably, he stopped DMSO for a time without telling anyone, to make the case stronger – whereupon his condition worsened, then improved again after he resumed. A patient with bulbar ALS, whose decline was so rapid that she stopped filming herself, reported the return of her speech, breathing, mobility, fine motor skills and even her smile. Her doctor was so impressed that he is setting up a dedicated IV DMSO area for his patients.

AMD expressly stresses that the readers’ reports contradict his own limited clinical experience – he had observed that IV DMSO tends to halt ALS progression rather than reverse it. He does not know whether the better results are due to particular ALS subtypes or higher doses. One reader who tried it briefly noticed no improvement.

Notably, AMD names IV DMSO for ALS as the most realistic route to FDA approval for a new indication – and says he would support a corresponding initiative by an ALS group, because it would “open many doors”.

Prion diseases and protein misfolding

DMSO is one of the best-known chemical chaperones – it stabilises proteins in their correct shape and dissolves misfolded aggregates. This is of particular importance for a group of fatal diseases based precisely on misfolding.

Studies:

• In cell models of Huntington’s disease, DMSO partly prevented cell death, increased cell viability, reduced aggregated huntingtin and increased its soluble, non-toxic form.
• In prion-infected hamsters, DMSO extended survival and increased urinary excretion of prion protein. DMSO-treated prion aggregates had less than 1% of the infectivity of untreated aggregates.
• In Niemann-Pick type C, a fatal genetic childhood disease, oral DMSO reduced seizures, improved EEGs and shrank the enlarged liver and spleen in Japanese patients – including an 8-year-old girl whose seizures declined so far that her medication could be reduced, and whose brain atrophy stopped progressing over two years of treatment. In mice with the disease, DMSO extended survival and delayed the neurological symptoms.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is the most common human prion disease, universally fatal and without treatment. AMD reports on a reader, a nurse, who successfully treated her cousin’s advanced, confirmed CJD with DMSO – to her knowledge the only person ever to have recovered from CJD. AMD notes that the nurse’s identity was confirmed in several unblurred communications.

Mental health, chronic stress and sleep

Psychiatry manages symptoms instead of treating the underlying illness – often with lifelong medication and considerable side effects. A considerable part of the evidence suggests that many psychiatric conditions have a physical basis in the brain, and DMSO acts on exactly these physical mechanisms: blood flow, inflammation, cell metabolism.

Studies:

• In a Peruvian psychiatric hospital, 42 patients were taken off their medication and given DMSO injections. All 14 patients with acute schizophrenia improved quickly and markedly and were discharged within 45 days without relapse. Manic patients calmed down rapidly, alcoholic psychoses resolved, and patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder and severe anxiety also responded. The authors noted that DMSO worked without the sedation of conventional tranquillisers.
• In 17 patients with treatment-resistant depression lasting 5 to 20 years, adding oral DMSO to their antidepressants resolved the depression in 82.3% of cases – lasting over one to four years of follow-up.
• In Chile, a DMSO amino acid formulation was used to treat mood and anxiety disorders; in older patients treated with it for cognitive decline, mood shifted from depressed to cheerful.
• In 210 women with chronic gum disease, DMSO treatment resolved the gum disease and lowered their anxiety.
• Russian reviews note that DMSO can be used for psychiatric disorders and that injected DMSO calms psychotic patients.

Chronic stress – here lies a particularly remarkable line of research: a decades-long Russian research programme found that chronic stress reduces blood flow to the brain from about 50 to below 30 ml/100 g/min – thereby triggering the degenerative changes seen in “stress” and psychiatric illness. Oral DMSO, especially combined with vitamin E, was the most effective intervention tested. The results are now being replicated in clinical studies at the Moscow Medical Academy. In the programme’s animal work, DMSO given before chronic stress completely prevented stress-induced stomach ulcers, anxious behaviour and blood pressure disorders. Dozens of other animal studies found that active substances given in DMSO reversed depression, anxiety, PTSD and psychosis in the standard models.

Sleep: DMSO is not a sleeping pill – in animal studies it had minimal effect on sleep at normal doses. Nevertheless, dozens of readers reported that it transformed their sleep by resolving the pain, restless legs, breathing problems or neurological problems that had kept them awake – in some cases after years of sleep-deprivation-related suicidality. This mirrors human studies in which sleep improved when DMSO resolved knee arthritis or neck and shoulder pain. Many readers independently noticed that their dreams became much more vivid or lucid.

Seizures, encephalitis and movement disorders

Seizures: many studies have examined DMSO in seizures and collectively show a biphasic effect – therapeutic doses suppress seizures, while very high doses can trigger them. In Niemann-Pick patients, oral DMSO reduced seizure frequency and improved EEGs. Vets use IV DMSO in horses and foals with seizures. In animals, dozens of active substances given in DMSO reduced seizures and the brain damage that follows them.

Encephalitis: DMSO has repeatedly been studied in brain inflammation caused by infections and other causes. In human medicine, DMSO has been used to treat viral meningitis and to enhance the treatment of bacterial meningitis. In horses it has been used in herpes and West Nile encephalitis. In animals, active substances given in DMSO protected against a range of fatal viral and parasitic brain infections and sepsis-related brain damage.

Myasthenia gravis – a remarkable chance discovery: in 1980, researchers found that the DMSO they were using as a vehicle independently lowered the acetylcholine receptor antibodies that cause MG – by 52% in rats, persisting six weeks after the end of treatment. DMSO also fully restored nerve-muscle function in a laboratory model of the disease. No human study was ever carried out. However, readers with generalised MG reported having had no more myasthenic crises since starting DMSO in 2022 – one described it as “better than the pyridostigmine I took 6 times a day”, another went from 30 prescription drugs to almost none, a third reported: “My swallowing and speaking are returning to normal.”

Hydrocephalus: a reader’s brother, whom neurologists had given only a few years to live, was treated with DMSO by Stanley Jacob, stabilised in a way his doctors described as “making medical history”, and lived for another 30 years.

Movement disorders: a single DMSO injection during pregnancy completely prevented neurological ataxia in lambs (0% compared with 60% of controls). Readers reported improvements in essential tremor (an 80-year-old regained the ability to write within a month), in vaccine-induced tremor and in restless legs – in some cases after decades of medication.

Down syndrome and developmental disorders

This is the part that AMD himself found hardest to believe – he writes that, like most doctors, he had assumed that nothing could be done about a genetic condition. The data are nevertheless remarkable and include congressional hearings.

Studies:

• In Oregon, 67 children with Down syndrome showed dose-dependent developmental improvements on DMSO – without side effects.
• In a Chilean study from 1976, the motor scores of 15 young children rose from 56 to 72 and their social scores from 40 to 64 over one year – while the controls remained unchanged. Physical parameters such as reduced tongue enlargement and better muscle tone also improved. A separate Chilean study of 55 children also found large developmental gains.
• In an Argentine study, 18 children with Down syndrome who received DMSO plus amino acids showed a statistically significant acceleration of their development – especially of language – compared with 91 controls.
• In a 1969 study of 44 severely developmentally delayed children, over 70% responded favourably, with gains in IQ, reading, writing, coordination and behaviour. In another 1969 study of 30 learning-disabled children with speech disorders, the same formula achieved gains in speech, initiative, self-care, reading and writing.

Congressional hearing 1980: several cases were described at a hearing:

• Melody Clark, who had been predicted never to develop mentally beyond the age of six, was functioning at second-grade level after seven years on DMSO. Her dentist also testified that her palate, jaw and tongue had normalised.
• Billy King, who at 14 had the mental level of a ten-month-old child, reached that of a seven-year-old two years later and eventually worked in a bookshop.
• Bronwyn Nash, frail and not gaining weight at 10 months, began to thrive steadily on DMSO.

Recent report: after these data were published, the parents of a girl with Down syndrome reported that she had begun to sleep better, had become more verbal and had started to crawl: “It’s almost as if she’s not the same child she was two weeks ago.”

The German DMSO community has since developed these amino acid formulations further and reports considerable benefits in learning disabilities and developmental delays.

On the question of autism – and here AMD is expressly cautious: there are no direct data. There are mouse studies in which active substances given in DMSO improved autism-like behaviour, a reader’s report that DMSO was part of a protocol that treated her son’s autism, and a reader’s report that topical DMSO relaxes the tense muscles of her daughter with cerebral palsy. That is far from solid evidence, and AMD does not present it as such.

Peripheral nerves: regeneration and neuropathy

Peripheral nerves can regenerate – but slowly (about 1 mm per day) and often incompletely, frequently complicated by scarring, inflammation and loss of Schwann cells. Standard therapies (gabapentin, pregabalin, opioids) at best partly relieve symptoms and have considerable side effects.

Nerve regeneration: in animals with severed, crushed or compressed nerves, DMSO consistently improved regeneration – more and better myelinated regrowing nerve fibres, restored nerve conduction, less scarring, better movement and sensation. In bridging nerve gaps, DMSO outperformed autografts, the surgical gold standard. It even induced limb regeneration in adult frogs, which normally cannot regrow limbs.

In rats with a severed sciatic nerve, nerve conduction amplitude rose by 935%, conduction velocity by 303%, expression of nerve growth factor by 227% and that of myelin basic protein by 165%.

CRPS – the strongest evidence base of all: about 50 studies, including several randomised controlled trials, and level 1 evidence for the condition:

• A 1985 study reported a recovery rate of about 90% when treatment began early.
• In an RCT of 31 patients, DMSO cream lowered the median disease score from 5 to 0 (placebo: 4 to 2).
• In 37 patients, pain scores fell from 5.3 to 0.9.
• In an RCT of 146 patients, about 80% improved.
• In a comparison of 145 patients, DMSO outperformed N-acetylcysteine and was more cost-effective.
• In 29 patients, DMSO reduced pain by 3.09 points over one year, with 89.7% reporting an improved quality of life.
• German, Dutch and Russian guidelines recommend 50% DMSO cream for the acute phase of CRPS. A standardised formulation is published in the Formularium der Nederlandse Apothekers.

A reader who used DMSO daily for CRPS for 18 years called it “a damn miracle”. Another CRPS case following a wrist fracture has been in remission for about nine years after her father, a vet, introduced her to DMSO.

Other peripheral conditions:

• Trigeminal neuralgia: of 35 patients who had had the condition for over a year, 26 improved and 13 recovered completely. In 154 patients with various conditions, a DMSO iontophoresis protocol achieved a marked improvement in 93%.
• Post-herpetic neuralgia: a 1992 RCT with 171 patients found a combination in DMSO superior to aciclovir for prevention. A 1974 RCT with 118 patients showed significant improvements. In facial shingles, the combination shortened the median duration of pain to 13 days (compared with 1 to 3 months), with pain beyond 30 days in 30% compared with 82%. In 1980 a Cleveland Clinic doctor testified that when DMSO was used during acute shingles, he had never seen post-herpetic neuralgia follow.
• Facial palsy: in a controlled study of 65 patients with Bell’s palsy, DMSO increased the cure rate and shortened recovery.
• Carpal tunnel and compression neuropathies: in diabetics, DMSO improved 83% of affected hands – without raising blood sugar, as steroid injections do. In 11 patients with radial nerve compression, it reduced pain by 69% and restored wrist extension in 73%.
• Diabetic and chemotherapy-induced neuropathy: in animal models, numerous active substances given in DMSO restored nerve function. More than 100 readers reported neuropathy from diabetes, chemotherapy, vaccinations and unknown causes that responded to DMSO.

How DMSO works: the mechanisms

A quote from the article sums up the clinical experience of one of the doctors involved:

“My impression, without hard data, is that about 80% of everything people see a neurologist for goes away with DMSO. That is what my patients who choose to try DMSO for their neurological problems report back to me.” – James Miller, MD

The mechanisms fall into three categories:

Widely recognised

• Protection against cell stress – DMSO made modern cryopreservation possible. The same protection extends to radiation, excitotoxins, heavy metals, nerve agents, heat and loss of blood flow.
• Neutralising free radicals and inflammation – DMSO is one of the strongest known hydroxyl radical scavengers and suppresses NF-κB, the master switch for inflammatory cytokines. Unlike steroids, it modulates the immune system instead of switching it off.
• Crossing the blood-brain barrier – within five minutes of being applied to the skin, DMSO reaches the bloodstream, and within an hour the whole body. It crosses the blood-brain barrier and carries other active substances with it, so that therapies reach the CNS at much lower doses.
• Pain relief – DMSO reduces pain transmission, relaxes muscles, reduces swelling and inflammation and potentiates local anaesthetics.

Documented but overlooked

• Inhibiting blood clotting – DMSO inhibits platelet aggregation, selectively inhibits COX-1 and thromboxane A₂, suppresses tissue factor and activates the natural clot-dissolving system. Because it normalises clotting instead of blocking a single pathway, its bleeding risk is lower than that of conventional blood thinners.
• Improved blood flow and reduced swelling – DMSO dilates blood vessels, stimulates lymph flow and acts as a targeted diuretic.
• Flushing out aged blood cells – IV DMSO causes osmotic haemolysis, which selectively affects aged red blood cells and lowers blood viscosity.
• Raising parasympathetic tone – DMSO inhibits acetylcholinesterase and shifts the autonomic balance towards recovery and repair.
• Blocking pain at the source – DMSO biophysically blocks the small nerve fibres that transmit chronic pain and suppresses NMDA receptors.
• Nerve repair – DMSO promotes membrane resealing and is one of the strongest known promoters of microtubule assembly.
• Chemical chaperone function – stabilising correctly folded proteins and dissolving misfolded aggregates.

Largely unrecognised

• Dissolving clumped blood cells – an extensive line of research found that “sludging” of blood cells and microclots block the smallest vessels and are a root of many diseases. DMSO prevents microclots by neutralising the forces that pull blood cells together.
• Restoring blood flow to the brain after chronic stress – see the Russian research programme above.
• Resetting cell structure – DMSO draws water away from cell membranes and drives actin from the cytoplasm into the nucleus. When the structures re-form, they apparently do so in a healthier form.

In any case, the original article “DMSO is a Miraculous Therapy for Neurological Diseases” is well worth reading!

More information on DMSO

There is an extensive wealth of knowledge in a whole series of books (German):

• DMSO – Das Heilmittel der Natur (DMSO – nature’s remedy)
• DMSO für Anfänger: Das ultimative DMSO Praxisbuch (DMSO for beginners)
• Medizin zum Selbermachen mit DMSO & Co. (DIY medicine with DMSO & co.)

DMSO and blends can be found in specialist chemists, pharmacies (which also make up blends to order, for example for eye drops) or by mail order (German):

• DMSO 99.9% Ph. Eur. dimethyl sulfoxide pharma, 1 litre
• DMSO 3% in sodium chloride solution, 100 ml
• DMSO with Zechstein magnesium oil and borax spray

And there is more on DMSO at TKP (German):

On protocols for use:

• Tips for special blends of DMSO with natural remedies
• Therapeutic DMSO combinations are revolutionising medicine

The most important applications:

• On the use of DMSO and its main effects
• DMSO for eye, ear, nose, throat and dental conditions
• Studies show healing of spinal cord injuries with DMSO – ignored by Wings for Life?
• Wings for Life: DMSO could save millions of people with brain and spinal cord injuries
• Effects of the forgotten remedy DMSO against cancer
• DMSO – old and powerful remedy rediscovered
• Astonishing cures – DMSO is gaining more and more followers
• DMSO – long known for highly effective treatments

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This article first appeared in German on tkp.at – with kind permission of Dr Peter F. Mayer. Translated from German by GAIA. It reports on studies and personal accounts and is not medical advice; DMSO, especially intravenous DMSO, should only be used under medical supervision.
Cover image: PublicDomainPictures / Pixabay