Two drugs approved decades ago not only counteract brain damage caused by Alzheimer’s disease in animal models. Rather, the same therapeutic combination can also improve cognition.
Sounds like a hit in terms of cure, but not yet. Researchers are currently concentrating on animal studies amid implications that remain explosive.
Yes, a surprising combination of drugs continues to destroy a key feature of the disease. So an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s may have been hidden for decades in plain sight.
What medications is it?
A promising series of preliminary studies highlights two well-known remedies in medicine cabinets: gemfibrosil, an old cholesterol-lowering drug, and retinoic acid, a derivative of vitamin A. Gemfibrosil is sold as Lopid and, although it is still used, it is not widely prescribed. Doctors now prefer to prescribe statins to lower cholesterol. Retinoic acid has been used in various formulations to treat everything from acne to psoriasis to cancer.
The two drugs are being studied for their strong impact on the brain and a potential new role that could one day push them to fight what is now an incurable brain disease. Both drugs have an amazing ability to target astrocytes in the brain, cells that originally got their name because they look like stars.
But astrocytes are intimately involved in a key process that progressively and insidiously destroys the brain.
This is your IMPACT
Researchers at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago have discovered that astrocytes may be responsible for the accumulation of amyloid beta (Aβ). The sticky plaque that damages neurons. As a result, these star-shaped cells help in the cascade of deleterious events. Which rob people of their sense of themselves, their memories and, ultimately, life.
The team of medical researchers has also discovered that gemfibrozil and retinoic acid. When used in combination, they force astrocytes to reverse their destructiveness. And instead, they reduce beta amyloid in the brain, improving cognitive function.
The findings suggest that, perhaps in the not-too-distant future, these drugs can be reused to persuade astrocytes to play a beneficial role. Serving as “cleaning machines” for Aβ, removing plaque buildup and preventing Alzheimer’s from unraveling the brain.
It is not yet known when the experiments could advance to a full human clinical trial.
“From a therapeutic angle, these results suggest that low doses [gemfibrozil y ácido retinoico] they could be reused as a treatment to reduce plaque burden and improve cognition, ”wrote Dr. Sumita Raha, first author of a paper published in Science Translational. Medicine .
HOW OLD ARE THESE MEDICINES?
Gemfibrosil is an old drug, first patented in 1968 as a cholesterol lowering drug. Retinoic acid-based medications are even older.
For example, tretinoin, a retinoic acid drug, was patented in 1957. If the gemfibrosil / retinoic acid drug combination finally works in humans, then the Chicago-based team will have started using a new two-drug treatment. very old.
Although the team at Rush University Medical Center is well focused on finding the two drug combination, it is not yet known when the experiments could advance to a full human clinical trial.
However, along with identifying a possible two-drug approach to Alzheimer’s disease, the Chicago experiments have also added to research on the biology of astrocytes in the brain.
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