Following on from yesterdays post about the discovery of 2 new genes associated with Alzheimers. Today’s New Scientist features the article New look at Alzheimer’s could revolutionize treatment.
Alzheimer’s has long been blamed on the fatty amyloid plaques that accumulate in the brain, but recent clinical trials suggest other processes may be at work.
Last year, Clive Holmes and his colleagues at the University of Southampton, UK, examined the brains of dead patients who’d received a vaccine that primes the immune system to attack amyloid plaques. Although the plaques had gone in most patients, in life their symptoms hadn’t diminished (The Lancet, vol 372, p 216).
Also disappointing was the performance of tarenflurbil (Flurizan), a drug designed to attack plaques. Myriad Genetics of Salt Lake City, Utah, announced last year that it was suspending the $200 million trial of the drug, the largest ever of an Alzheimer’s treatment, after it failed to deliver significant improvements in memory, cognition or people’s ability to care for themselves. Meanwhile, drugs targeting other processes have shown success. The most tantalising news comes from trials of dimebolin, a hayfever treatment developed decades ago in Russia. Results from a trial published last year in The Lancet (vol 372, p 207) showed that patients taking the drug scored 7 points higher in standard tests of cognitive abilities compared with those on placebo, a substantial improvement on a scale of 70. As hay fever is caused by the body’s inflammation process going awry, this result chimes with gene and hospital studies published this week that suggest inflammation plays a role in Alzheimer’s (see main story) Read full article
Source: New Scientist
