Beta-CGRP

Where it comes from

Made in

Enteric neurons of the gut, and sensory neurons alongside alpha-CGRP

Sent out by

Gut and sensory nerve activity

Acts on

• Gut vessels and smooth muscle
• Arteries

What it does

• Dilates vessels like alpha-CGRP
• The main CGRP of the enteric nervous system ⁴
• Unlike alpha-CGRP, its blood level does not fall under the antibody treatments, and the two levels do not track each other at all ¹²

In medicine

• The migraine medicines bind it as well as alpha-CGRP, so both should fall under treatment; in treated patients only the alpha level does ¹
• Assays that tell the two apart exist only in research, and the blood has to be drawn into protease inhibitors for either to be read reliably ²
• No condition is diagnosed by its level and no medicine is aimed at it alone

Beyond the body’s own use

• It is hardly ever studied apart from alpha-CGRP, which is why its own job is still open ⁴
• As the CGRP of the gut’s own nerves it has been looked for in bowel disease: people newly diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease carried lower blood levels than healthy controls in the one study that measured it ³
• Nobody takes it and nothing copies it; the question being asked is whether a blocker that spared beta-CGRP would spare the gut