The race to incur a treatment for Alzheimer ’s disease and other forms of dementedness is littered withfalse starting line , drained closing , andfiery clash . That caveat aside , there has been some hopeful research indicate a social class of drugs originally created to control diabetes and fight obesity could also help slow down the progression of Alzheimer ’s . A newstudyin mice , write lately in Brain Research , now intimate we could supercharge this cognitive protective effect by using a drug that interacts with three hormones connected to diabetes .
The basic premise behind using diabetes drugs to treat Alzheimer ’s is simple enough . Weknowhaving type-2 diabetes increases the risk of Alzheimer ’s ; we alsoknowthat people with Alzheimer ’s have mastermind cells that ca n’t use glucose — the elemental source of fuel for all cells — as expeditiously as typical mobile phone . That same sort of disfunction is at the heart of diabetes : Diabetics either grow less insulin or do n’t reply to it as powerfully as they should , so they ca n’t treat glucose easily . By fixing the wit ’s glucose problem in people with Alzheimer ’s , it’shoped , we can delay its advance .
The drug used in the discipline is already in maturation as a potent intervention for both diabetes and corpulency , withencouraging if earlyresults . It make for by bind to the receptors for the hormones glucagon - like peptide-1 ( GLP-1 ) , glucose - dependent insulinotropic polypeptide ( GIP ) , and glucagon , give up the organic structure ’s prison cell to take in more of each . The first two hormones serve the trunk stimulate the production of insulin and hyperbolise its effects , which observe our roue sugar stratum from getting too eminent , while glucagon acts as a buffet - weighting to insulin , and is released when pedigree sugar is too low . By combining all three effects at once , the drug has been register in the lab to serve obese and diabetic black eye balance their rip sugar level , preserve a healthy metabolism , and misplace system of weights better than existing medicine that only work on one or two receptors .
The current work is the first to test whether this drug could also help foreclose or even repair the corrosive brain scathe inflict by Alzheimer ’s . The researcher used mice genetically bred to have many of the aspects of Alzheimer’s — memory loss , chronic Einstein inflammation , and the tell - narrative build - up of amyloid brass that force in - between and seem to damage nerve prison cell . They throw in the mice with the drug every day for two month . When compared to a ascendence group , the dosed mice had less redness , less plaques , and even meliorate nerve cell growth . More visually apparent , the mice also do well on snarl tests , suggesting the drug had stopped and even invert their memory loss .
“ The new triple GLP-1 / GIP / Gcg receptor agonist prevail clear promise of being developed into a novel intervention for chronic neurodegenerative disorder such as Alzheimer ’s disease , ” the authors concluded .
Again , it ’s important to stress we ’ve been down this path many times before withAlzheimer ’s research : Promisingfindingsin animals that utterly miscarry to appear in big , material - world discipline of the great unwashed . Just this past class , at leastthreeAlzheimer’sdrugsflunked their Phase III trials ( the last phase of clinical drug development before the FDA will approve a newfangled treatment ) hard , include adrugthat work on a similar premise of specify encephalon cell ’ fuel shortage .
The researchers in the current study strike a note of cautiousness themselves , pointing out that more studies will need to demonstrate whether the three - pronged approach is actually good at press off Alzheimer ’s than other technique , along with visualize out how much of a dose is enough to get a strong enough but safe response .
For the ever - optimistic , though , there are mark of promise . An other phasehuman trialof the diabetes drug liraglutide was successful enough to lead to an expanded version that’songoingnow , and there have been other small , encouragingtrialsusing diabetes drug to slow down neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson ’s disease . If this research give off , it could leave to already - approved drugs being repurposed to treat Alzheimer ’s , which would take much less time than the sometimes decade - long process it can take for a wholly raw drug to accomplish the world .
Alzheimer ’s diseaseDiabetesScience
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