Alzheimer's Pill: a skeptic's opinion
Konev: it's too early to talk about a breakthrough in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease
Previously, "Gazeta.<url>" reported that American pharmacists have presented a drug that successfully resists Alzheimer's disease. Representatives of the company claim that the drug adukanumab allowed more than 70% to stop cognitive impairment in patients following the results of the very first phase of clinical trials. The drug was developed specifically to cleanse the brain of amyloid plaques, which are believed to be the cause of memory impairment and other negative manifestations of Alzheimer's disease.
"It is hardly possible to reverse the process when amyloid brain damage (the cause of Alzheimer's disease) has already formed. Amyloid is a very dense protein, imagine that it will have a reverse development, dissolution – very complex chemical processes must participate in this," Konev said.
According to the professor, before celebrating the victory over the disease, you need to wait for the final stage of clinical trials. "We will wait until mass healthcare tries to replicate these schemes. It is a common practice – after the last phase of the research carried out, to publish data in small print on the last pages about an error in case of premature conclusions," he said.
The task is to make a profit"The desire of some Western companies for primacy is manifested in the fact that unverified data is very often published in the broad press.
This is done purposefully, because the task of this company is to make a profit – it will get it now," the expert stressed.
According to "Gazeta.<url>", the shares of the company developing the drug have already soared by 50% since December.
According to Konev, scientists from different countries have been trying to invent a remedy for Alzheimer's disease for a long time. "Experimental drugs are born with a frequency of once every six months, but who is still there, and then it turns out that they were "a little hasty", that the drug does not work at a late stage, that it acts only prophylactically when amyloid deposits have not yet formed. I think such a conclusion will be made after a certain period of time and in this case," the expert concluded.
In turn, the chief psychiatrist of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, Zurab Kekelidze, told RIA Novosti that even if the drug shows 50% effectiveness according to the results of the tests, it will be possible to talk about a revolutionary discovery. "Of course, such a drug will be a revolution in the understanding of this disease, even if this remedy helps in half of the cases, this is already a huge breakthrough. Alzheimer's disease is becoming more and more frequent, because now the average life expectancy is increasing," the expert said.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru27.03.2015