
Scientists from UC San Francisco and the Gladstone Institutes have made a discovery that could offer new hope to people with Alzheimer’s disease.
They found that two cancer drugs might be able to reverse brain changes caused by Alzheimer’s, possibly slowing down or even reversing its symptoms.
Alzheimer’s is a brain disease that slowly takes away memory, thinking skills, and the ability to carry out simple tasks. It affects about 7 million people in the United States. So far, there are only two drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat it, and neither one can stop the disease from getting worse.
The new study began by looking at how Alzheimer’s disease changes the way genes work inside individual brain cells. The researchers studied both neurons, which are the cells that send signals in the brain, and glial cells, which support and protect neurons. In Alzheimer’s disease, both types of cells become damaged.
Then, the team searched for drugs that could do the opposite of the changes caused by Alzheimer’s. They wanted to find medicines that were already FDA-approved for other uses.
After searching a huge database of how drugs affect gene activity, they found 1,300 possible drugs. From those, 86 looked promising for one type of brain cell, and 25 worked for several. Only 10 of these drugs were already approved for use in people.
To narrow it down further, the scientists examined medical records from 1.4 million people over age 65. They found that people who had taken some of these drugs for other reasons had a lower risk of getting Alzheimer’s.
This helped them choose the top five most promising drugs. From those, they picked two to test in the lab: letrozole, used for breast cancer, and irinotecan, used for colon and lung cancer.
The team tested these drugs in mice that had a severe form of Alzheimer’s. These mice had memory problems and damage in their brains, similar to people with the disease.
After being treated with both drugs, the mice improved. Their brain cells showed fewer signs of damage, the harmful protein clumps were reduced, and most importantly, their memory got better.
The study’s authors are hopeful that these results will lead to human clinical trials. If the drugs can help people in the same way they helped the mice, it could be a big step forward in the fight against Alzheimer’s.
This research shows how using big data and smart computer tools can find new uses for old drugs. By combining information from brain cells and medical records, scientists may be able to quickly find effective treatments for diseases that have been hard to treat.
If you care about Alzheimer’s, please read studies about Vitamin D deficiency linked to Alzheimer’s, vascular dementia, and Oral cannabis extract may help reduce Alzheimer’s symptoms.
For more information about brain health, please see recent studies about Vitamin B9 deficiency linked to higher dementia risk, and results showing flavonoid-rich foods could improve survival in Parkinson’s disease.
The study is published in Cell.
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