Stop Alzheimer's Disease
Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Research, working under the leadership of David Schubert, synthesized an experimental drug J147, which prevents the progression of Alzheimer's disease.
This is the most common neurodegenerative disease of old age characterized by a gradual irreversible deterioration of the cognitive function of the brain, depriving a person of memory and the ability to think. In the final stages of the disease, patients cannot independently perform even the simplest actions, such as eating. Usually the first symptoms begin to appear after 60 years, but there are genes that cause a predisposition to an early manifestation of the disease. To date, there are no effective methods of prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease. The used symptomatic drugs provide only some improvement in short-term memory, but do not slow down the development of the disease.
As a rule, specialists involved in the development of new methods of treating Alzheimer's disease are trying to influence the biological mechanisms of the formation of amyloid plaques – dense protein accumulations in brain tissue that are a characteristic feature of the disease. However, according to Schubert, during clinical trials, none of these drugs showed decent results.
Therefore, the authors took an alternative path: they used neuron cultures to study the ability of various synthetic compounds to protect brain cells from the development of a number of pathological signs associated with aging. The most promising compound identified at the first stages of work, originally developed for the treatment of stroke and traumatic brain injuries, was subjected to several stages of chemical modification, which increased its effectiveness against the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.
Experiments on mice have shown that oral administration of the drug, called J147, significantly improves the results demonstrated by normal animals in behavioral tests. After that, the researchers showed that the drug prevents the extinction of cognitive function in animals with an analog of Alzheimer's disease. It also turned out that J147 increases the production of brain neurotrophic factor in mice and rats – a protein that not only protects neurons from toxic effects, but also promotes the growth of new neurons and the formation of synaptic contacts between them.
The researchers hope that in the near future they will be able to test the possibility of using J147 for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease in humans. They also believe that, due to its pronounced ability to protect nerve cells, this drug may be useful in other neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, as well as stroke.
Article by Qi Chen et al. A Novel Neurotrophic Drug for Cognitive Enhancement and Alzheimer's Disease is published in the journal PLoS One.
Evgeniya Ryabtseva
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies: Alzheimer's drug candidate may be the first to prevent disease progression.
by the way:
According to ABC magazine, Finnish scientists have discovered biomarkers that can predict whether a person with moderate cognitive impairment will develop Alzheimer's disease. The results of their work are published in the journal Translational Psychiatry (Metabolome in progression to Alzheimer's disease).
The study participants were volunteers from the city of Kuopio in eastern Finland – 226 men and women aged about 70 years, whose health was monitored by scientists for 5 years. By the beginning of the study, 37 of them had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, 46 people had no memory problems (and became a control group), and 143 participants complained of memory problems, i.e. had moderate cognitive impairment. Blood samples were collected from the study participants every morning. During the follow-up, Alzheimer's disease was diagnosed in 52 people from the group with cognitive impairments, while 91 participants from this group did not progress with memory impairment or stopped bothering at all.
At the same time, three groups of special metabolites – beta-amyloid precursor proteins, the main "culprit" of the disease development, were found in the blood of participants in the group with memory disorders who later developed Alzheimer's disease. It is these metabolites, according to scientists, that can become biomarkers for determining the risk of the disease: the concentration of these substances in the blood of people who showed symptoms of Alzheimer's disease over the next 5 years turned out to be increased.
According to scientists, over the next 3 years, a new method of early detection of the disease by blood analysis will be put into practice. The biomarker metabolites discovered by scientists can help in the development of fundamentally new methods of treating Alzheimer's disease. In addition, early diagnosis of this disease will make it possible to take preventive measures for the elderly, without waiting for the full development of dementia.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru
16.12.2011