The latest approach to the battle against Alzheimer’s is not in stopping the advance of the disease in those that have already shown mental decline, but in preventing the disease before memory and thinking skills are affected. Two large studies currently underway hope to yield positive results that will alter or prevent an Alzheimer’s disease or dementia prognosis.
Thus far, researchers have been unsuccessful in attempts to halt the progression of Alzheimer’s. Over the last decade, 146 documented attempts by drug companies have been met with failure. Even where drugs have been successful in removing the plaques that are hallmarks in the brains of people with the disease, they haven’t been able to prove that the treatment forestalls mental decline. At best, physicians are able to somewhat delay the downward trajectory of cognitive decline.
“What we have been learning, painfully, is that if we really want to come up with therapies that will modify the disease, we need to start very, very, very early,” said Dr. Eliezer Masliah, neuroscience chief at the National Institute on Aging, in an AP News article earlier this month.
The Institute on Aging is funding a prevention study with the Alzheimer’s Association, several other foundations, and Novartis and Amgen, the makers of two experimental drugs that are being tested. Their objective is to block the first development of plaque formation in healthy individuals who show no symptoms of dementia but are at a higher risk for it because of age and a gene that makes it more likely.
In order to take part in the study, interested candidates must join GeneMatch, a confidential registry of people interested in volunteering for Alzheimer’s studies who are 55 to 75 and have not been diagnosed with mental decline. They are analyzed for the APOE4 gene, whose presence raises the risk for someone to develop Alzheimer’s disease. It’s estimated that one in four people have one copy of the gene and about 2 percent have two copies, one from each parent. Currently, more than 70,ooo people have signed up for the registry since its launch three years ago.
To participate in one of the two prevention studies, individuals must agree to learn their APOE4 status and possess at least one copy of the gene. Every six months, participants will receive brain scans and memory and thinking tests. They are also given experimental drugs or placebo versions of them for several years.
For the first study, participants will be selected who have two copies of the gene. Those individuals will receive one of three options: shots every few months of a drug meant to assist the immune system in clearing plaques from the brain; daily pills of a drug intended to prevent the first processes of plaque formation; or placebo versions of these experimental treatments.
The other study will focus on individuals who either have two copies of APOE4 or one copy of the gene in addition to evidence on brain scans of plaque beginning to develop. They will receive one of two doses of the drug to prevent plaque formation or placebo pills.
This aggressive new focus on prevention will hopefully yield results that will stave off the disease for not only current generations, but all of those to come. If you are interested in reading more about Alzheimer’s prevention, Dr. Bredesen’s book “The End of Alzheimer’s” does a great job of breaking down what the disease really is and possibilities for prevention in the future.