New Treatment for Alzheimer’s shows bright future.

Hurray!   New treatment for Alzheimer’s has the potential to change the course of this disease and others.  Previous treatment efforts have focused on a single target (beta-amyloid protein), but now research is targeting a process in the brain that leads to the toxins involved in Alzheimer’s and other diseases.  In Alzheimer’s there is a build-up of two toxic proteins (beta-amyloid and tau), which somehow get folded into the wrong shape, and then kink and link to other proteins floating around the cell. This process triggers a chain reaction of clumps and misfolded beta-amyloid and tau proteins that damage brain cells.  The new approach to treatment involves a compound that targets protein misfolding which prevents both the beta-amyloid and tau from making these clumps.   Currently tests done on mice showed impressive results.  There is a class of monoclonal antibodies that work on the tau and amyloid clumps and when given to mice they were able to reverse the disease.  Equally exciting is that these targeted antibodies work on clumps associated with Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia.   The future is looking bright for combating all of these diseases!

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/07/19/423891071/alzheimers-drugs-in-the-works-might-help-other-diseases-too