• Question: Do you think there will ever be a cure for Alzheimer's?

    Asked by Rachel to Alex, Laura, Lesley, Richard, vediacan on 13 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Richard Prince

      Richard Prince answered on 13 Jun 2015:

      A very good question Rachel.
      I sincerely hope so….. however, it is a tricky disease to treat!
      Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease (it destroys the structure of the brain). It seems to be caused by cells getting gummed up with a protein called amyloid beta, but no-one has worked out why this happens. When a neurone accumulates too much amyloid beta, it dies. One way to treat AD would be to get cells to break down the amyloid beta and some people are working on drugs to do this. However, by the time people start to get the symptoms of AD, they will have already lost quite a lot of neurones. It might be possible to use stem cells to replace the lost neurones, but that is still a long way off, and probably would not result in the patient gaining lost memories – you would essentially be regrowing part of the brain and so you might end up with changes in personality.
      Probably a better way to attack AD is to work out why cells start to accumulate amyloid beta. If you could do that, you might be able to prevent people from getting AD in the first place. As they say… “prevention is better than a cure”
      Best wishes
      Richard

    • Photo: Alex Agyemang

      Alex Agyemang answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      Great question Rachel.

      With normal ageing and increasing average life expectancy, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a disease that is likely to impact someone we know. Drugs currently available for treatment unfortunately only manage the symptoms of the disease.

      AD is characterised by a number of structural and functional changes in the brain. The structural and functional changes in the brain that characterise AD offer potential targets for new drugs to slow, halt or reverse the progression of the disease, hence it is plausible that successful treatment will consist of a combination of drugs aimed at several targets. One promising approach involves repurposing existing drugs as AD treatments. For example, a pilot clinical trial recently demonstrated that a nasal-spray form of insulin was able to delay memory loss and preserve cognition in individuals with cognitive deficits ranging from Mild Cognitive Impairment to moderate AD [Craft et al., 2012]. These promising findings led to the establishment of a much larger, ongoing clinical trial of intranasal insulin [ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01767909].

      Some of the promising new drugs and approaches also under investigation are based on preventing Alzheimer’s disease in individuals who, based on their genetic background and age, are at the highest imminent risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Overall, I think this approach has the potential to prevent AD within the next 10 to 15 years.

      I hope this is helpful.

      Best wishes,
      Alex

    • Photo: Vedia Can

      Vedia Can answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      Hi Rachel,

      I think there will definitely be a cure for Alzheimer’s disease but not sure when.

      Best Wishes,

      Vedia

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