Posted on 07/22/2006 2:43:50 PM PDT by RWR8189
AUSTRALIAN scientists may have found a cure for Alzheimer's disease. In a world first, a Melbourne research team has developed the once-a-day pill to combat the brain disease.
Human trials of the drug start next month.
The drug, known as PBT2, was developed by the Mental Health Research Institute of Victoria in partnership with Prana Biotechnology in Melbourne.
"It is a major breakthrough and very much a Melbourne discovery,'' said Professor George Fink, the director of the Mental Health Research Institute.
"Though much depends on the next phase of human clinical trials ... early results indicate this drug offers hope to people with Alzheimer's disease.''
Prof Fink said the drug could prevent or delay Alzheimer's from developing.
Many scientists accept amyloid is a major cause of Alzheimer's as the protein is thought to cause the brain to "rust'', and clinical tests have found the drug acts fast, lowering amyloid levels by 60 per cent within 24 hours of a dose.
It also found PBT2 suppressed the impairment of memory function.
This would be a major blessing if it is real.
God I hope so!
Dittos.
This would be HUGE!!
If true, then on "memory function" claim alone it is a bigger drug than aspirin or penicillin ever were.
After reading the following definition in Wikipedia I still do not understand what they are...
Amyloids are various types of insoluble fibrous protein aggregations sharing specific traits when examined microscopically. The name amyloid comes from the early mistaken identification of the substance as starch (amylum in Latin), based on crude iodine-staining techniques. For a period, the scientific community debated whether or not amyloid deposits were fatty deposits or carbohydrate deposits until it was finally resolved that it was neither, but rather a deposition of proteinaceous mass.
Amyloid deposits are extracellular, thioflavin-positive, and exhibit apple-green birefringence when stained with congo red when seen under a polarizing microscope. Other indicators exist, such as serum amyloid P component binding. Since these are indirect indicators, biophysicists have redefined amyloid using a canonical set of biophysical characteristics (see below), and this seems to cause a low level of conflict between histologists and biophysicists.
The phenotypes of genetically transmitted amyloid diseases are often inherited in an autosomal dominant fashion. Sometimes, the difference between aggressive amyloid diseases and senescent amyloid diseases is due to a mutation that makes the protein more prone to aggregation. Most commonly seen are point mutations, which affect the cohesiveness of the protein and promote misfolding; other mutations cause aggregation-prone pieces of the protein to be cleaved off from the rest of the protein.
Amyloids are present in some neurodegenerative diseases but play a normal productive role in processes such as melanin formation.
You ain't kiddin'... both my parents had it.
This drug would save the US health care system alone so much money, that Prana Biotech and Dr. Fink could charge us billions and we would gladly pay up.
For this type of a disease, I wonder what they used to show promise outside of human trials. I guess they examined hamsters that gradually forgot how to climb the wheel?
Sounds like good science. Hoping for the best!
Looks quite promising so far, if this pans out the stock of Prana Biotechnology is going to skyrocket.
Hallujah!
I pray, especially for a close neighbors sake, this works
he and his wife worked together on their farm and hadn't spent one night apart in 67 years, 7 months ago he could no longer control and care for her
she is in a home for it now
I wonder if Nancy Reagan will stop her lobbying to experiment on human embryos.
GOOD NEWS BUMP.
I think that one of the root causes of Alzheimers is lack of mental stimulation. While I don't have the har evidence to prove it, I have noticed that the people who get it are the ones who don't challenge themselves mentally. The ones that do almost never seem to get it. The brain is like a muscle--it will waste away if it is not used.
Certainly a particular former president had no shortage of mentally challenging tasks at hand...
So is you going to buy the Nintendo DS brain training for all your senior relatives?
Great news!
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