Showing posts with label Aging Research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aging Research. Show all posts

Monday, June 23, 2014

Alzheimer Disease Research

Alzheimer Disease Research
Much research has been done to find an effective treatment for Alzheimer's disease and many more new researches are also in progress. Most researchers collaborate with each other to get maximum results.



An aspect that is highly researched is Amyloid beta, which is to find ways to reduce it by using agents like bapineuzumab. Another, known as semagacestat, a y- secretase inhibitor, and MPC-7869 as well as ACC-001, a vaccine for reducing Amyloid beta, is administered in the mild stage of Alzheimer disease, are all significant researches to find effective treatment for the disease.



One aspect of researches in Alzheimer's disease is immunotherapy. This therapy mostly aims to use on diagnosed patients enhancing their immune systems' ability to recognize and take reversible action against worsening effects of amyloid that may alter the onset of the disease.



As early as 1972, research was done on mice, which was expected to give good effect on Alzheimer's disease patients called An-1792. Nevertheless, in 2002 when it was in its Phase II progress, part of participants got serious inflammation of their brains and the research was immediately stopped preventing the testing of An-1792.



Nonetheless, further experimenting with AN-1792 was in progress. Sometime back, it was highlighted that 20 percent of the patients who underwent the experiments were found with high levels of antibodies, which control beta amyloid. While earlier attempts worsened the position of placebo-patients and non-antibody responders, these patients developed their cognitive abilities and were reported to have their protein tau of cerebrospinal fluid lowered. Nevertheless it was lastly decided that those who underwent AN-1792 research experiments though shown clearing amyloid plaques, their ongoing neuro-degeneration was not prevented.



Clinical trials have shown that Rosiglitazone, an insulin sensitizer, can improve cognition of certain subset of patients. Further, when treatment based on the endocannabinoid system, it is suggested a significant improvement of Alzheimer's patients was seen. However, this research is also yet unyielding.



Though, there is news of finding a cure in a vaccine to reduce amyloid plaques, the same vaccine is ineffective to dementia, making complication in researching of the reduction Amyloid beta in patients.



Many researches are also being done to find neuro-protective agents such as Al-108 (phase II) and PBT2, that are also in its phase II research stage, which is a metal-protein interaction attenuation. In addition to these medicines found as results of extensive researches, many more researches that aim at increasing knowledge of the disease are also in progress, which may help to find more and more effective medications and methods to control the disease.