Posted on 01/22/2005 12:05:15 PM PST by Middle-O-Road
Scientists have reversed the damage caused to the brain by Alzheimer's disease during tests on mice. The US team used an antibody to remove the build up of potentially damaging deposits from the area of the brain responsible for memory and cognition.
The treatment reversed the nerve cell damage in days, Washington University School of Medicine researchers said.
UK experts described the findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, as "exciting".
Prior to the study, it was thought that once the damage had been caused to the brain there was no way of repairing it.
This new work is particularly interesting since it seems the nerve cells that were damaged in Alzheimer's disease were able to partly recover after the plaques cleared
Harriet Millward
Lead author Robert Brendza said: "We thought that clearing the plaques (deposits) would halt the progression of the damage.
"But what we saw was much more striking - in just three days there were 20 to 25% reductions in the number or six of the existing swellings."
He said more research was needed to see if the effects could be repeated in humans with the degenerative brain disorder for which there is no cure.
It is estimated that 2% to 5% of people over 65 years of age and up to 20% of those over 85 years of age have Alzheimer's.
The cause of the disease is not known although people with Alzheimer's do have a build up of abeta, a glycoprotein, which could be responsible for the nerve cell damage.
Mice with a build up of abeta were injected with the antibody and then using a dye to give detailed images of the nerve cell branches, the team were able to monitor the improvement over a few days.
'Interesting'
"From the details that I've seen, these could be very interesting results.
Alzheimer's Research Trust deputy chief executive Harriet Millward said: "This new work is particularly interesting since it seems the nerve cells that were damaged in Alzheimer's disease were able to partly recover after the plaques cleared."
But she added: "We are still a long way from finding an answer to Alzheimer's, but by learning more about the disease process, we will be able to accelerate progress towards ways to treat and prevent this devastating condition."
Dr Susanne Sorensen, head of research at the Alzheimer's Society, said several researchers across the world were also looking into the use of antibodies.
But she added: "The research in animal models reported here is exciting because it provides additional, important information about how abeta antibodies may reverse the signs of disease in neurons.
"However, there is still a lot to learn about what happens to the brain cells during Alzheimer's, and what these antibodies do to reverse the situation."
WOW! Wonderful!
I agree, and this is encouraging. I am very hopeful that gene therapy is going to provide a number of much needed fixes to ailments that have gone untreatable before this. Very cool.
I agree! It's an awful disease.
Hmmm...no stem cells from aborted babies needed after all? Great news!
Too bad there isn't a cure for the brain disease that causes people to become liberals...
Good news for Liberals.
Great news - thanks.
"In families descended from Volga Germans--a group of German families that settled in the Volga River valley in Russia in the 1800s--dozens of descendants have developed Alzheimer's disease in middle age."
I'm in the above at risk group.
Here is the link with a discussion.
http://www.medhelp.org/NIHlib/GF-62.html
Prior post this subject
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1324947/posts
Antibody treatment partially reverses nerve damage in Alzheimer disease
Too bad there isn't a cure for the brain disease that causes people to become liberals...
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I think such a finding would be a miracle for the world...along with curing Alzheimers (sp?) -- I watched a relative die over 5 years from it, and it was a very ugly death. A merciful quick death would have been a blessing.
Liberalism is just as bad because it kills the living -- and they continue to live with the mental disorder...
Most interesting. Thanks for posting. My dad has dementia.
Yes, but bad news for PETA. Now if they'd said "during tests on 'rats," then PETA wouldn't care since they prefer all humans die, including Democrats.
Given that, I wonder why Democrats like PETA?
A dreadful disease..heartbreaking for the victim and the families...I do hope help is on the way soon.
Thank you for posting this. My mom died from Alzheimers and dementia, so I'm very interested in any developments in this field. This looks very promising.
Absolutely! My father was a brilliant man, and watching Alzheimers destroy him was like seeing the lights in a great city blink out -- one by one -- until total darkness claimed everything...
My mother developed dementia..It broke my heart the night I finally moved a bed against the door to keep her from going outside again in total darkness to turn off a faucet that was not running...I think I went a bit demented facing it.
"This is one disease I'd like to see bite the dust."
You got that right. Imagine the implications if we could count on additional millions of our people being lucid, mentally alert, memory sharp, routinely into their 80's and 90's.
Plus the benefits to longevity and lifespan, since most Alzheimers patients die from complications rather than some other concurrent illness.
If this were to pan out it would radically alter every policy equation in our society today.
The only comparable innovation would be an affordable effective medicine to reverse severe arthritis.
Solve these two and you automatically shut down the entire nursing home industry and the major expense of medicare and medicaid as well. Health care "crisis" would be over, that simply.
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