Will existing drugs help with Alzheimer's disease?

The results of a systematic review conducted under the leadership of Professor Clive Ballard from King's College London have shown that some widely used drugs in medical practice have the potential to prevent the development of Alzheimer's disease or slow the progression of symptoms of this disease. Such drugs include:

• Medications for lowering blood pressure, belonging to the class of calcium channel inhibitors. Research results indicate their ability to significantly reduce the risk of developing dementia.
• Antidiabetic drugs (exenatide and liraglutide) that activate the brain and suppress the formation of amyloid plaques in it.
• Minocycline is a tetracycline antibiotic used to treat acne.
• Acitretin is a drug for the treatment of psoriasis, apparently affecting the formation of protein–protein relationships, leading to the development of dementia.

Currently, work has already begun on the study of previously unknown mechanisms of action of these drugs. Their use for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease would save a huge amount of money and time needed to develop new medicines to combat this disease, which has recently become one of the main medical problems of the aging population of developed countries.

However, despite the prospects of new research, until reliable scientific results are obtained, these drugs should be taken exclusively in the treatment of diseases for which they were originally intended.

The results of the study will be published in the journal Nature Reviews Drug Discovery.

Evgeniya Ryabtseva
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru according to Medical News Today:
Common Drugs Could Provide A New Way To Combat Dementia.

02.11.2012