Antagonism of substance P and perception of breathlessness in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Substance P in this randomized controlled trial publication.

The objective of this study was to investigate whether substance P, an excitatory neuropeptide, modulates the perception of breathlessness by administering aprepitant, a selective antagonist that blocks neurokinin (NK)-1 receptor signaling.

Why It Was Studied

Individual targeted resistive load breathing (RLB) was used to provoke breathlessness.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 1, patients were involved.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were older adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Because people in this Substance P study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Blinding on both sides kept the patients and researchers unaware of who received Substance P.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Substance P could be set against what happens without it.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Aprepitant, Dyspnea, Morpholines, Naloxone, Narcotic Antagonists, Neurokinin-1 Receptor Antagonists and Perception.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Beta-endorphin, Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Resistive load breathing and Substance P.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Substance P in 1, patients.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

The publication is from 2014 (Respiratory physiology & neurobiology), a journal based in Netherlands.

More context: the Substance P compound page, all human trials.