Alzheimer's Cure Likely Far Off But Treatment Breakthroughs On Horizon

A treatment for Alzheimer’s disease may be coming sooner than we thought. New developments in medical research this week suggest that a meaningful way to treat, or possibly even halt, the course of the disease may be on the horizon.

Two developments have Alzheimer's researchers hopeful: A new drug that targets protein tangles in the brain thought to cause the disease, and a possible way to retrieve a patient's memories, which had previously been believed lost.

It’s important to remember that nothing in science is guaranteed, and researchers have pursued many seemingly promising paths in the past without much success. Many treatments that look revolutionary in preliminary trials eventually fail to prove safe or effective in subsequent trials.

Nevertheless, as Bloomberg Business reports, the researcher Claude Wischik is planning to release the results of encouraging new human trials of a treatment for Alzheimer's in July. The treatment method known as LMTX, developed at TauRx Pharmaceuticals, targets a protein known as 'tau' in the brain known to be associated with the progression of Alzheimer’s.

Tangles of this protein form in the brain of people with Alzheimer’s disease, and these abnormalities are thought to cause many of the disease’s symptoms. TauRx has found that using LMTX to dissolve these tangles may cause improvements in the cognitive abilities of patients in clinical trials. The researchers believe the treatment has the potential to stop or even prevent the progress of Alzheimer’s.

If TauRx's treatment is successful, it would be revolutionary for millions of Americans and people worldwide. Forty-four million people globally are estimated to have Alzheimer's disease, a number that is could grow to 135 million by 2050. In the United States alone, health experts believe that one in nine people over the age of 65 are afflicted by the condition.

There's some reason to be skeptical of the TauRx approach. While most research efforts haven't focused on the tau protein tangles, researchers have generally focused on another protein, called beta-amyloid, with little success. Some experts in the field, like Duke University neurology professor Allen Roses, believe the protein tangles are only an effect of Alzheimer's, not a cause.

In Roses's view, Alzheimer's is more likely caused by gene variations that cause neurons to die by cutting off their supply of energy. He's been frustrated with the research community's focus on protein tangles.

"Science is not a mob opinion. Science is what the data says,” Roses said in an article on Public Radio International. “Unfortunately, 90 percent of the field in Alzheimer’s research is only interested in one kind of data.”

Recovering lost memories

Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by progressive decline in a person’s cognitive and mental abilities, which negatively affects behavior and memory. It is the most common cause of dementia in elderly people. In rare cases, it also affects people in their 30s, 40s, or 50s. Patients with Alzheimer’s often have difficulty recognizing family members, using language, performing everyday tasks, and take care of themselves.

The second development out this week concerns one of the central features of the disease: memory loss. A new study from researchers at MIT and published in Nature this week demonstrates that memories lost in cognitive decline may be recoverable. Researchers found that they could restore memories in mice that had been lost due to Alzheimer’s symptoms the researchers had induced. The technique requires the direct genetic manipulation of cells in the brain’s hippocampus.

The researchers found this particularly encouraging because it was previously unclear whether memories of Alzheimer’s patients themselves had been degraded, or if the patient’s ability to access memories was at issue. This study suggests that the memories haven’t been entirely lost, they’ve just become harder to retrieve.

While the researchers are optimistic that this may point away to recovering lost memories in humans with Alzheimer’s, there are many obstacles to overcome before such a treatment could become viable. Extrapolating from animal studies to human cases can be difficult. Even if the same treatment principles apply across species, developing a treatment that is practical and appropriate for widespread use is a formidable challenge.

As it stands, we have not been able to develop a cure or even an effective long-term treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. Several drugs have been developed that can slow the progression of the disease’s symptoms — such as onepezil, rivastigmine, and galantamine — but many hope for a more enduring solution.

Animal studies are a long way from a workable cure. And though optimistic about its prospects, TauRx does not foresee its treatment hitting the market before 2020.

Photo Credit: Saad Faruque via Flickr