New Alzheimer's treatment works in minutes

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: Robert J. Berger [rberger () ibd com]
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 2:08 AM
To: Dewayne Hendricks; David Farber
Subject: New Alzheimer's treatment works in minutes

New Alzheimer's treatment works in minutes
By Jonathan M. Gitlin | Published: January 10, 2008 - 03:43PM CT

http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2008/01/10/new-alzheimers-treatment-works-in-minutes

Alzheimer's disease is a growing concern among our aging populations.
As people live longer lives, diseases of old age become increasingly
common. Perhaps, as with obesity, diabetes, atherosclerosis, and other
common modern maladies, there are also lifestyle or environmental
factors at play. Alzheimer's, unlike those ailments of the body, has
had little in the way of useful therapeutics, instead only offering
the promise of an inevitable mental decline.

One reason for the lack of effective Alzheimer's drugs has been our
understanding of the mechanisms involved in how the disease works. The
widely accepted view has been that certain proteins that are present
in nerve cells begin to aggregate together, forming lesions. Potential
therapies often focus on a neurotransmitter, acetylcholine (ACh), and
often have unpleasant side effects.

More recently, neuroscientists have been looking not at the neurons,
but the cells that surround them as an important component of the
disease. Glial cells are most of the cells in the brain that aren't
neurons, and they fulfill a range of specialized functions from
forming myelin to housekeeping in the brain. Some glia envelope
neuronal synapses, the junctions between nerves where
neurotransmitters signal from one to another, and it's these cells
that are now increasingly thought to be critical in Alzheimer's.

What's surprising is the involvement of a molecule we thought we knew
quite well. Most scientists working in biomedical research would be
familiar with a cytokine called Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF)-α. TNFα
is a signaling protein that is deeply involved in inflammation, and
drugs that act on the TNFα pathway are increasingly being used as
treatments for autoimmune diseases. But as it turns out, in the brain
TNFα is used by glial cells as a gliotransmitter, and increased levels
of TNFα in the brain, outside of the normal physiological levels,
results in impairment of synaptic function.

And that appears to provide a therapeutic avenue, thanks to those new
TNFα drugs we have developed. The Journal of Neuroinflammation carries
a case report of the rapid mental improvement of an Alzheimer's
patient following spinal infusion of a drug called etanercept.
Etanercept is a protein drug that binds to TNFα and neutralizes it.
Within just two hours of initial treatment with the drug, the patient
showed marked improvement on a range of cognitive tests, and following
a short series of repeat treatments, continued to improve. The authors
of the study have been using this treatment for several years now, and
have published other case studies also showing a remarkable mental
improvement.

While this case report gives cause for optimism, it must be noted that
the research is still preliminary; double-blind trials have not been
performed, and the case reports don't examine biomarkers of
Alzheimer's disease. Nevertheless, given the possibility of reversing
this terrible disease, it seems a foregone conclusion those double-
blind trials are in the works.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Robert J. Berger - Internet Bandwidth Development, LLC.
Voice: 408-838-8896 eFax: +1-408-490-2868
http://www.ibd.com





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