Thursday, October 15, 2015

Hope in Alzheimer's Treatment 

Alzheimer’s disease is the fifth leading cause of death in the US of people aged 65 years and older. Because of this and the detrimental effects the disease has on sufferers and their families, much research has been done to determine the cause of the disease and to develop treatments. As many of you know Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia, which is defined as the “general decline in mental ability severe enough to interfere with daily life.” The thought of forgetting whom important people in our lives are and losing the ability to live on our own and perform simple daily tasks such as getting dressed is terrifying. But what if there were a way to prevent this disease or a cure to stop its effects?


Michael Collins spoke at Loyola University Chicago about research he and fellow researchers have done on how moderate alcohol consumption could prevent the cognitive impairments and progression of dementia. They looked at cultures of rat brains that had been preconditioned with moderate levels of ethanol, the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages. Their work pointed to a possible mechanism in which ethanol can induce a neuroprotective state in the brain which blocks it from the effects of neurotoxic proteins such as beta amyloid peptides. This mechanism involves NMDA receptors, which leads to increases in the protein kinases PKC and FAK. There is also increase in the enzyme Prx2, which has been linked to neuroprotection from ischemia and is responsible for the protection from beta amyloids.
These beta amyloid peptides are thought to play an important role in the development of Alzheimer’s, and many antibody drugs seek to act on these. As explained in the article, Antibody Drugs for Alzheimer's Show Glimmers of Promise, many antibody drugs have failed in previous tests, but recent trials of the drugs solanzumab and aducanumab developed by Lilly and Biogen respectively provide possible hope for this approach. Solanezumab was shown to slow cognitive decline by about 30% for people with mild Alzheimer’s. While aducanumab did not have any statistically significant clinical benefits at moderate doses, 27 people who received high doses of the drug for one year showed significantly less cognitive decline than those who received a placebo. While these results are positive findings there is still controversy over whether amyloid deposits in the brain will be best treated with these types of drugs. As Lon Shneider, an Alzheimer’s research pointed out, behavioral interventions, such as changes is diet and exercise, have shown to work just as well as drugs.This connects back to the research done by Collins, suggesting that maybe a glass of wine at dinner every night might be all we need to prevent Alzheimer’s.

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