Alzheimers symptoms reversed in human patient

[Jammrock]

It would be excellent to be considered droll before dying.

It has been a bad typing day today. I haven't gone more than two sentences without mispelling something.

Which reminds me. My company's owner emailed on of our Dell sales reps and got an autoresponder that said:

"I am currently away from my desk due to sever weather..."

I got a kick out of that for two reason.

[Marshmallowman]

more good news for Alzheimer's

http://www.thewest.com.au/aapstory.aspx?StoryName=468935

New drug shows promise for Alzheimer's
19th March 2008, 13:20 WST

Australian scientists believe they are a step closer to curing Alzheimer's, with a new drug that may even stop or reverse the effects of the degenerative disease.

Data from the clinical trial presented to a women's mental health conference in Melbourne shows the medication can reduce levels of a brain protein called amyloid, which is notoriously linked to the condition.

The protein behaves strangely in Alzheimer's sufferers, dividing irregularly and creating a form called beta amyloid that builds up in sticky toxic clumps in the brain, killing off neurons.

Why the protein does this is unknown but a team of Melbourne researchers have developed a drug that has been found to stop the process in rats and a small group of sufferers.

Called PBT2, the drug works by stopping beta amyloid from abnormally combining with the brain's own metals, zinc and copper, and forming plaques.

"We found we were able to remove the pathology of Alzheimer's disease in animal models," said Professor Ashley Bush, of the University of Melbourne, told delegates.

When trialled on 78 patients over 12 weeks, the results were "remarkable", with distinct improvement seen in executive function.

"We can only imagine that with a longer trial the effect will be even stronger," said Prof Bush.

The drug is being developed by the Australian pharmaceutical company, Prana Biotechnology Limited, which worked jointly on its discovery with the Mental Health Research Institute of Victoria.

Larger scale trials involving hundreds of Australians are expected to get underway later this year, with the drug available generally as early as 2011 if found to be effective.

The drug is one of a handful in development worldwide to treat the disease, for which there is currently no cure or effective treatment.

Alzheimer's disease affects around 140,000 Australians and the number of people with the condition is expected to treble over the next 40 years in an ageing society.

Currently, the Alzheimer's incidence rate of five per cent among people aged over 60 rises to 25 per cent in those over the age of 80.

Rates are higher among women because they tend to live longer than men.

Prof Bush said women were also twice as likely to die from Alzheimer's because it had been discovered they have higher levels of zinc in their brains.

[Claymonkey]

I REALLY hope this is true. It runs in my family and the thought of it happening to my parents OR me freaks me out FAR more than the thought of cancer.

Now.... could this same treatment improve memory for healthy people?