Scientists from Karolinska Institutet found that mechanisms linked to a particular diabetes drug can also help to protect against Alzheimer’s disease.
The results indicate that the drug’s target protein could be an interesting candidate for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.
The research is published in Neurology and was conducted by Bowen Tang et al.
Alzheimer’s disease is becoming increasingly common, but there are no drugs to affect the course of the disease and the development of new drugs is a slow, costly and complex process.
An alternative strategy is therefore to find already approved drugs that can prove efficacious against the disease and give them a new area of application.
Diabetes drugs have been put forward as possible candidates, but so far the studies that have tested diabetes drugs for Alzheimer’s disease have not produced convincing results.
In the present study, researchers used genetic methods to study this more closely.
The researchers began by identifying genetic variants that mimic the pharmacological effect of diabetes drugs, namely lowering blood glucose.
This was done through an analysis of data from over 300,000 participants in the UK Biobank register.
The analysis identified variants in two genes that together code for the target protein of a class of diabetes drug called sulfonylureas.
The researchers validated these variants by showing their association with, amongst other phenomena, higher insulin release, lower type 2 diabetes risk and higher BMI, which is consistent with the drug’s effects.
The researchers then examined the link between the identified genetic variants and the risk for Alzheimer’s disease.
They did this by analyzing data collected previously from over 24,000 people with Alzheimer’s disease and 55,000 controls.
They found that the genetic variants in the sulfonylurea genes were linked to a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
The results suggest that the target protein of sulfonylureas, the KATP channel, may be a therapeutic target for the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease.
If you care about Alzheimer’s disease, please read studies about a new way to prevent Alzheimer’s disease, and medical cannabis can reduce this brain disorder.
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