Trial drugs 'reverse' Alzheimer's

[Beorn]

Trial drugs 'reverse' Alzheimer's

US scientists say they have successfully reversed the effects of Alzheimer's with experimental drugs.

The drugs target and boost the function of a newly pinpointed gene involved in the brain's memory formation.
In mice, the treatment helped restore long-term memory and improve learning for new tasks, Nature reports.
The same drugs - HDAC inhibitors - are currently being tested to treat Huntington's disease and are on the market to treat some cancers.
They reshape the DNA scaffolding that supports and controls the expression of genes in the brain.

The Alzheimer's gene the drugs act upon, histone deacetylase 2 (HDAC2), regulates the expression of a plethora of genes implicated in plasticity - the brain's ability to change in response to experience - and memory formation.
This findings build on the team's 2007 breakthrough in which mice with symptoms of Alzheimer's disease regained long-term memories and the ability to learn.

Lead researcher Professor Li-Huei Tsai explained: "It brings about long-lasting changes in how other genes are expressed, which is probably necessary to increase numbers of synapses and restructure neural circuits, thereby enhancing memory.
"To our knowledge, HDAC inhibitors have not been used to treat Alzheimer's disease or dementia.
"But now that we know that inhibiting HDAC2 has the potential to boost synaptic plasticity, synapse formation and memory formation.
"In the next step, we will develop new HDAC2-selective inhibitors and test their function for human diseases associated with memory impairment to treat neurodegenerative diseases."

Future hope

HDAC inhibitor treatment for humans with Alzheimer's disease is still a decade or more away, she said.
The chief executive of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, Rebecca Wood, said: "This is promising research which improves our understanding of memory loss in Alzheimer's.
"We need to do more research to investigate whether developing treatments that control this gene could benefit people with Alzheimer's.
"We desperately need to fund more research to head off a forecast doubling the UK population living with dementia."
Julie Williams, an expert in the genetics of Alzheimer's for the trust, said scientists were on the brink of finding a number of candidate genes that increase the risk of developing Alzheimer's.
"If we can find the triggers and causes then we can hopefully prevent them. That is the great ambition."

Source: BBC

[Psychonaut]

Given that my grandfather suffered from Alzheimer's for the last decade of his life, I'm always happy to see developments in this area.

[Beorn]

Given that my grandfather suffered from Alzheimer's for the last decade of his life, I'm always happy to see developments in this area.

The very same sentiment, Psych.

My maternal grandmother suffered from Alzheimer's for the remaining 9 years of her life, and as much as it pains me to have said it when she died, as it does to say it now; but I was not too upset at the conclusion of her life as she was already dead in my eyes.

It was terrible having to see such a noble woman suffering the way she did. Considering that all my life she was the one woman I looked up to as a marker as to how my partners would be as part of a working family unit.
She was fastidious in her appearance and would always be the perfect 50's host to guests, but as the disease grabbed a hold of her, she became less inclined to bother about her appearance and even less inclined to tend to her guests, at home and at her hospital bedside.

I remember taking my first born, Rheanna, to visit her, and dying inside that she didn't even know who I was.
She later remembered who I was, but by that time the place was akin to the bowels of Hell itself with patients defecating themselves and screaming and yelling in anguish and pain.

Alzheimer's is one disease I would hope to see eradicated from the face of this Earth.

[Psychonaut]

My maternal grandmother suffered from Alzheimer's for the remaining 9 years of her life, and as much as it pains me to have said it when she died, as it does to say it now; but I was not too upset at the conclusion of her life as she was already dead in my eyes.

That's exactly how it was with my granddad too. He died last month, and although I kept thinking that I should be more upset than I was, I ended up coming to the same conclusion. The last few times that I did see him, he barely recognized me. I'm just grateful that he had enough clarity when my son was born to be as happy as he was about that.

[Treffie]

Apparently there are properties in daffodils that can help Alzheimers.

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A daffodil crop grown in Powys which will be used to produce a drug to fight Alzheimer's disease is ready for harvesting, its growers have said.

Alzeim, from Talgarth near Brecon, farms daffodils for a compound called galantamine, which slows the progress of the disease.

Until now, galantamine has been extracted from snowdrops grown in Bulgaria and China.

Local supplies may persuade the NHS to pay for its use in England and Wales.

It is already available in Scotland but it has to be prescribed privately elsewhere as it is not on the National Institute for Clinical Excellence's prescription list.

The flowers are grown on the slopes of the Black Mountains after trials showed that location produced blooms with greater concentrations of galantamine than those grown in lower areas.

Last year, Alzein, based in Talgarth, received £850,000 from the Welsh Assembly Government's investment company Finance Wales and private investors to go into commercial production of the drug.

Company chairman Sir Roger Jones told BBC Wales said the company was beginning its harvest on Monday.

"We know exactly what the galantamine content is and the question is to pull that out and turn it into galantamine crystals and sell it to manufacturers all over the world," he said.

"Hopefully in the UK, but lots of it will end up in Europe and Canada. That's where the market is.

"The product has come off patent in most countries and now generic manufacturers who make a cheaper version of the drug want galantamine and we want to supply to them."

Sir Roger said the business could expand into other areas of Wales if necessary.

"There are ways of enhancing farming incomes, I'm pretty certain of that," he said.

"The yield of galantamine in the areas we're growing daffodils is much higher than in other areas of the UK and Europe."



Dafydd Evans, of Alzheimer's Society Cymru, believes supplies of the drug, which is used in the early stages of the disease, could help some of those with the condition.

"There's an ageing population and at the moment there are 37,000 people in Wales suffering from the problem and that's going to go up by 20% over the next few years.

"In Britain, there's 700,000 [with Alzheimer's] and that's going to go up as people get older," he said.

"It's very important that something is done to help these people because of the cost of people going into residential accommodation.

"It's so expensive that anything that can be done from a commercial point of view will be useful."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/8007175.stm