MONDAY JULY 21 (foodconsumer.org) -- A new study in the July
19 issue of The Lancet suggests that amyloid plaques in the brains of patients
with Alzheimer's disease may not be the cause of the disease.
The study showed that removal of amyloid plaques from the
brain did not stop progression of Alzheimer’s.
In the study, Dr. Clive Holmes from the Memory Assessment
and Research Centre at Moorgreen Hospital in Southampton and colleagues looked
at data on 80 Alzheimer's patients who had received an experimental vaccine
called AN1792.
Amyloid plaques are believed to cause Alzheimer's disease, a
major form of dementia.
And removal of
the plaques was expected to improve the condition.
The vaccine did reduce the number of plaques in the brains
of patients, or even completely got rid of these plaques in some patients;
Holmes was cited by Healthday.com as saying.
However, the researchers found no evidence that removing
plaques at least by using vaccine made any difference in the clinical outcomes
of the Alzheimer's patients.
Dr. Holmes was cited as saying that plaques are not
sufficient to account for the progression of this disease and a new approach
would be needed to treat the disease.
Helathday.com cited Dr. Sam Gandy, chairman of the
Alzheimer's Association's National Medical and Scientific Advisory Council as
saying that the findings suggest whatever causes the plaque buildup affects the
disease progression.
Alzheimer's disease, which has no cure, affects an estimated
4.5 million Americans. The disease usually begins after age 60, and risk goes
up with age, according to the National institute of Health.
Another study from Russia suggested that Alzheimer's disease
can be treated and the condition can be improved.
In the study, Dr. Rachelle S. Doody, professor of neurology
at the Alzheimer's disease and Memory Disorders Center at Baylor College of
Medicine in Houston, and colleagues randomly assigned 20 milligrams of the drug
dimebon, a drug approved in Russia as an antihistamine, or a placebo to 183
Russian patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease.
At six months, patients on dimebon experienced significant
improvement in thinking abilities, behavioral symptoms and their daily skills
compared to those receiving placebo.
The researchers found at six months, patients on dimebon had
their condition improved by 1.9 points on the ADAS-cog scale while those on
placebo experienced continued decline in the brain functions.
After one year, the drug dimebon resulted in an improvement
of 6.9 points on the scale.
DAS-cog (Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale - Cognitive)
is the common clinical tool used to evaluate Alzheimer's patients.
Dimebon is manufactured by the San Francisco-based
pharmaceutical company Medivation, according to healthday.com.
A phase III trial also is being conducted in the United
States, Europe and South America, Doody was cited as saying.
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