A drug that cures dementia? It’s the headline we are waiting for. It may be premature to celebrate, but researchers had a major breakthrough by achieving an important result in mice. They showed that tau pathologies, the second most important lesion in the brain of people with Alzheimer’s, can be reversed by a drug used traditionally for asthma. This was the first time that such a reversal has been documented.
There are no cures for dementia. At the moment, the best bet is to follow preventative care for ourselves and loved ones. This research finding is notable because the researchers took mice with advanced brain deterioration and turned it around. We are a long way from using such a solution on humans, but the result is significant.
Tau happens when proteins in our brain get tangled as brains deteriorate due to Alzheimer’s. It’s one of the main hallmarks of the disease. Scientists debate if tau causes Alzheimer’s or is simply a symptom, but its presence and significance in the disease is undisputed.
The research team at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University had its breakthrough when they studied leukotrienes — inflammatory molecules that play a significant role in the later stages of dementia. In the early stages of the disease, leukotrienes protect nerve cells, but over time, they cause damage. Once they saw this, the scientists wanted to find out if by blocking leukotrienes, the damage could be reversed. Their goal was to fix cognitive impairment in mice that had a lot of tau in their brains.
The researchers used mice that were engineered to have tau as they aged. Then they had to wait a year — the equivalent of 60 years in humans — before treating them with zileuton. Zileuton is an asthma drug that stops the formation of leukotriene by blocking an enzyme.
After 16 weeks of treatment, the mice were put through a variety of tests to evaluate their spatial learning and memory capability. The mice that received zileuton demonstrated significantly better performance compared to untreated mice.
The scientists then examined the levels of leukotriene levels in the animals. Mice that were treated had an incredible 90 percent reduction in leukotrienes. Researchers also found that the treated mice had 50 percent less tau.
The chief scientist heading the study observed that for mice that had been treated, inflammation was completely eliminated. The trial therapy shut down inflammation in their brains, enabling the tau damage to be reversed.
About the Author:
Lorenzo Mejia and his wife, Mary Lynn Ryerson, are the owners of Acorn, a caregiver registry located in Chapel Hill.
They founded Acorn based on their experiences caring for his mom, who suffered with Alzheimer’s Disease. In 2013, he became a Qualified Dementia Care Specialist. In 2014, the Alzheimer’s Foundation named him the Dementia Care Professional of the Year in the United States.
Lorenzo is the founder of Dementia Friendly Orange County an effort to make local businesses more accommodating to people with dementia.
Lorenzo speaks often on dementia and the challenges associated with caring for loved ones. He has been interviewed by ABC News and National Public Radio. He is an adviser to Orange County’s OC-CARES Dementia Capable Community Project.
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