AlzDigest » alzheimer’s disease

80-Year-Old Drug Offers Hope for Reversing Alzheimer’s

paul — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:59:01 +0000

An 80-year-old drug that had been used to treat gastrointestinal problems, such as diarrhea, may hold promise for reversing the effects of Alzheimer’s disease, according to researchers at Canada’s McGill University.

Dr. Siegfried Hekimi of the school’s Department of Biology said the drug clioquinol directly effects the CLK-1 protein and could act to slow aging. While exactly how the drug affects CLK-1 is unknown, Hekimi said a possible explanation is the fact that clioquinol is known to affect metal in the bloodstream, leading him to theorize that metals are involved some way.

Researchers tested the compound on mice and some invertebrates and demonstrated that it inhibited CLK-1 and impacted the progression of Alzheimer’s and two other age-related disease.

However, Hekimi advised caution, saying far more research is required.

The drug, clioquinol, was used widely in Asia and Europe for gastrointestinal disorders. However, in the ’60s in Japan, it was linked to an outbreak of subacute myelo-optic neuropathy (SMON) and taken off the market. But some researchers point out that the incident was never studied and that the drug has been used safely since, casting doubt on the link between it and SMON, according to McGill.

At right: Dr. Siegfried Hekimi

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Canadian Research Shows Alzheimer’s Hitting Younger Patients

paul — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:22:48 +0000

Calling Alzheimer’s disease a “rising concern” in Canada, researchers in that country say not only could the number of those suffering from the disease double in a generation, recent data also appears to say people are being affected at a younger age.

Marking the start of Alzheimer’s Awareness Month, the Alzheimer Society of Canada released data this month that showed 71,000 of the half-million Canadians living with the disease or dementia related to it are younger than 65.

The data means the impact of the disease won’t be limited to the country’s health care system but will affect business and industry as well as they deal with workers who contract it.

Among the facts revealed by the study are:

Of Canadians over age 65, one in 11 suffer from Alzheimer’s or related dementia.
Of Alzheimer’s sufferers, women comprise 72 per cent.
Another 250,000 people in Canada might develop the disease within five years.
The total number of Canadians with the disease could more than double in 25 years to between 1 million and 1.3 million.

As a result, the Canadian Society called on citizens to donate in January in support of Alzheimer’s research and to make their concerns known to lawmakers.

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Good Knight! Author, Alzheimer’s Activist Gets Knighthood

paul — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:00:13 +0000

Late each December in Britain the “Honours List” announces who will receive knighthoods – among other royal honors – for the coming year. This year, the list included Terry Pratchett, a best-selling science fiction author who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and has become active in raising awareness about the disease.

Pratchett is the creator of the Discworld series with more than 60 million books in print which have been translated into more than three dozen languages. He had received the Order of the British Empire in 1998.

It was just last year that Pratchett went public with the fact that he was seeing signs in himself of Alzheimer’s in its early stages. He promised to continue writing, but he has done more than that.

In addition to raising public awareness of the disease, Pratchett has spoken to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown at his Downing Street home to request more funding for research into the effects of Alzheimer’s, such as dementia. He also donated more than $700,000 to the Alzheimer’s Research Trust. Finally, he has become an official celebrity patron of the trust.

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Brain Starvation May Trigger Alzheimer’s

paul — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 16:17:10 +0000

A Northwestern University study shows that some forms of Alzheimer’s may result from a biochemical process triggered by age-related starvation of the brain.

“This finding is significant because it suggests that improving blood flow to the brain might be an effective therapeutic approach to prevent or treat Alzheimer’s,” said the study’s primary author, Robert Vassar, a professor of cell and molecular biology at Northwestern’s Feinberg School School of Medicine.

The study shows that a brain not getting enough sugar glucose launches a process ultimately producing sticky clumps of protein thought to be related to causing Alzheimer’s. This glucose lack can happen in those suffering from cardiovascular disease that restricts arterial blood flow to the brain.

Specifically, a deficient supply of energy to the brain alters a protein, called eIF2alpha, and that in turn boosts production of an enzyme that “flips a switch” starting production of the sticky clumps, Vassar said. His research was conducted on human and mice brains and was published in the journal Neuron.

The good news is relatively simple preventive measures can improve blood flow to the brain. The measures include:

getting exercise
reducing cholesterol
managing hypertension.

“If people start early enough, maybe they can dodge the bullet,” Vassar said, adding that for those already showing symptoms of the reduced blood flow, vasodilators, which increase it, could boost oxygen and glucose delivery to the brain.

It was Vassar who 10 years ago found the enzyme that triggers formation of the sticky clumps of protein outside neurons that disrupt the neuron’s message-transmitting ability. What causes the dangerous levels of the protein has not been known. This study points to energy deprivation as a possible trigger.

Funding Vassar’s research were the National Institute on Aging, the MetLife Foundation and Northwestern University.

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