In an unusual clinical trial, men ages 50 to 80 years old with very mild cognitive impairment or not getting any help from doctors are given medicine that blocks the effect of a protein called amyloid beta found in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease.
The remarkable finding is that some of the people who had given up trying to slow or stop the progress of the disease ended up having the symptoms reversed. More than one-third ended up having their symptoms better than were present before they started taking the drug, New Scientist magazine reported.
Among people who take regular meals and exercise, dementia is rare, but in this rare group in which exercise and eating well can compensate for normal aging, the study found that amyloid beta does significantly raise risk of early onset dementia.
The drug that helps stave off the disease in this group appeared to come in pill form, but scientists have found that less of the drug is needed to reduce the damage the mice.
A recent study conducted on mice, monkey and human mice found that a drug containing two amino acids called omalizumab is effective in halting the spread of Alzheimer’s disease. The findings will be reported at an international conference on Alzheimer’s this week.
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