AD

Breakthrough Treatment Proven to Prolong Life

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IN BRIEF
  • A new drug for treating Alzheimer’s has shown enormous promise in lab tests on mice.
  • Early indications suggest the drug not only treats the symptoms of the disorder, but works to extend life-span.

NEW ADVANCE

An international team of researchers has developed and tested a drug on mice to treat Alzheimer’s disease. The results of the testing is very promising, suggesting that not only does the drug mitigate symptoms, but also increases life-span in patients with the debilitating disease. The team’s findings have been published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

According to author Professor Andrew Tobin, the drug targets a particular protein (M1 muscarinic receptor) that is associated with the disease and activates it, having a positive effect on cognition. Different drugs were previously tested on this protein but had too many adverse side-effects to make them practical as effective treatments. The class of drug used in these trials, however, did not manifest any of these adverse side-effects in the subject mice. Professor Tobin explained that the team, including Dr. Sophie Bradley, “found that these drugs can not only improve symptoms of brain degeneration, such as cognitive decline, but can also extend the life-span of these terminally-sick mice,” when administered daily.

Image credit: Thomas Deerinck/NCMIR/Science Source

LONG ROAD

Since the trials are still at the animal testing phase, there is no guarantee that these drugs will have the same impact on humans. Even if this particular treatment does not live up to its early promise, it’s providing important discoveries about the disease itself that could play a vital role in the research ahead.

Current treatments simply serve to mask or relieve patient symptoms. There is no cure for the disease, but with each new research project undertaken, there is hope for healing.

The goal of Alzhiemer’s treatments seems to be shifting toward not only improving symptoms of the disease, but also to slow down the deleterious disease progression, thus extending life-span. It will take a lot of time and an ever-accumulating pool of professional knowledge, but with results as promising as these, there is always hope.

Type 2 Diabetes May Have Link to Alzheimer’s

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Study Shows Insulin Resistance May Raise Risk of Brain Plaques Associated With Alzheimer’s

Aug. 25, 2010 — People with insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes may be at increased risk for developing telltale brain plaques that are closely linked to Alzheimer’s disease, a study shows.

The new findings, which appear in the Aug. 25 issue of Neurology, may give more evidence of the connection between diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.

In insulin resistance, the hormone insulin, produced by the pancreas, becomes less effective in lowering blood sugar.  People with insulin resistance are at risk for developing type 2 diabetes.

“Type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease are two epidemics growing at alarming levels around the world,” says study researcher Kensuke Sasaki, MD, PhD, with Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan, in a news release. “With the rising obesity rates and the fact that obesity is related to the rise in type 2 diabetes, these results are very concerning.”

Checking for Signs of Alzheimer’s

In the new study, 135 Japanese men and women underwent diabetes screening tests in 1988 and were followed for up to 15 years for signs of Alzheimer’s disease. Overall, 16% showed signs of clinical Alzheimer’s disease before they died; 65% of people in the study also showed evidence of plaques in their autopsied brains after death.

People who had abnormal results on their blood sugar tests were more likely to have plaques in their brain, the study shows. This relationship was more pronounced among people who also had a form of the ApoE gene that’s been linked to a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

There was no link between insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes and risk for developing brain tangles, another brain abnormality seen with Alzheimer’s disease, the study shows.

“Further studies are needed to determine if insulin resistance is a cause of the development of these plaques,” Sasaki says. If it is,”it’s possible that by controlling or preventing diabetes, we might also be helping to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.”

The new study “supports the hypothesis that insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes is causally related to a higher risk of dementia including Alzheimer’s disease,” writes Jose A. Luchsinger, MD, MPH, in an accompanying editorial.

More studies are needed to figure out precisely how the conditions are connected, he writes.

“This is urgent considering that over half of the U.S. population in the age group most at risk for cognitive impairment has prediabetes or type 2 diabetes,” he writes.

Some current trials are looking at how available insulin-sensitizing drugs affect cognitive impairment.

Spinal Fluid Test Predicts Alzheimer Disease

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Patients may ask about a widely reported Archives of Neurology study that shows high accuracy in diagnosing Alzheimer disease (AD) based on protein patterns in the cerebrospinal fluid.

Researchers sought to identify biomarkers for AD without regard to clinical diagnostic information, such as cognitive testing. Measuring the spinal fluid concentrations of beta-amyloid protein 1-42 and phosphorylated tau181P protein, the researchers found that AD presented a “signature” pattern of low beta-amyloid levels and increased phosphorylated tau. The pattern was found in 90% of AD patients, 72% of those with mild cognitive impairment, and 36% of the cognitively normal.

The researchers conclude that AD apparently manifests itself earlier than previously believed and that the current diagnostic criteria for the disease should be revised.

Editorialists “strongly recommend” that the analyses be undertaken when a definitive diagnosis of AD will help counsel patients about work and driving.

Why More Education Lowers Dementia Risk

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A  team of researchers from the United Kingdom and Finland has discovered why people who stay in education longer have a lower risk of developing dementia—a question that has puzzled scientists for the past decade.

Examining the brains of 872 people who had been part of three large ageing studies, and who before their deaths had completed questionnaires about their education, the researchers found that more education makes people better able to cope with changes in the brain associated with dementia.

Over the past decade, studies on dementia have consistently showed that the more time you spend in education, the lower your risk of dementia. For each additional year of education there is an 11% decrease in risk of developing dementia, this study reports.

However, these studies have been unable to determine whether or not education—which is linked to higher socioeconomic status and healthier lifestyles—protects the brain against dementia.

This is not the case, the new study lead by Professor Carol Brayne of the University of Cambridge has found. Instead, the study shows people with different levels of education have similar brain pathology but that those with more education are better able to compensate for the effects of dementia.

According to co-author Dr Hannah Keage of the University of Cambridge: “Previous research has shown that there is not a one-to-one relationship between being diagnosed with dementia during life and changes seen in the brain at death. One person may show lots of pathology in their brain while another shows very little, yet both may have had dementia. Our study shows education in early life appears to enable some people to cope with a lot of changes in their brain before showing dementia symptoms.”

Compared with previous research, this study was able to answer the question because of its large size and statistical power.

The studies have assessed participants for up to 20 years and are three of only six such studies in the world.

The results have important implications for public health at a time when populations in many countries are ageing.

“Education is known to be good for population health and equity. This study provides strong support for investment in early life factors which should have an impact on society and the whole lifespan. This is hugely relevant to policy decisions about the importance of resource allocation between health and education,” says Professor Brayne.

The results of this study are published in the journal Brain.