In a new study from Osaka City University, researchers found a method to stop dementia from the nose.
Dementia is thought to occur when proteins called amyloid-β, tau, and α-synuclein accumulate in the brain.
The team had previously shown in a study using mice that the antibiotic rifampicin removes oligomers from the brain and improves cognitive function.
However, the drug has been associated with side effects such as liver damage. Resveratrol, a naturally occurring antioxidant in plants, is used as a supplement in Europe and the United States.
To combat the negative side effects of the existing drug rifampicin, the team thought of combining it with the hepatoprotective effects of resveratrol.
In the study, they administered a fixed-dose combination of rifampicin and resveratrol intranasally five days a week for a total of four weeks to mice models of Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, and dementia with Lewy bodies.
The results showed that the drug combination strongly improved cognitive function Additionally, blood levels of liver enzymes, a marker of hepatic damage that normally increases with rifampicin, remained normal in the fixed-dose combination.
These results indicate that this fixed-dose combination is superior to rifampicin alone in terms of both safety and efficacy.
The number of patients with dementia has been increasing all over the world, with some sources predicting a doubling of patients every 20 years. However, there is still no effective treatment for the disease.
Recent studies have shown that abnormalities begin to appear in the brains of dementia patients more than 20 years before the onset of the disease.
By investigating new therapeutic purposes with existing drugs in a process called drug repositioning, the research team hopes to diagnose and prevent dementia before the neurons start dying.
If you care about dementia, please read studies about your walking speed may tell your risk of dementia, depression, and more, and findings of high blood pressure drugs that could prevent dementia.
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The study is published in Frontiers in Neuroscience. One author of the study is Professor Takami Tomiyama.
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