I am often asked about potential treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. The intention behind the question is to solicit my assessment of whether there are any medications that show promise for the future. Anyone who has talked to me or followed my columns knows that I am frustrated by the rigid commitment and inflexibility of many clinical trials that focus on treating brain proteins called amyloids that cause the build up of plaques in the brain. This strategy has channeled so many intellectual and financial resources into a collective tunnel vision despite many failures of the concept. There are two recent studies that merit attention in that they each add intriguing findings that are not directly connected to amyloid pathology. They focus on slowing progressive diseases as well as suggest new strategies in the search for disease modifying treatments of Alzheimer’s […]
Diabetes
Type 2 diabetes mellitus is associated with accelerated cognitive decline in the elderly. This includes increased risk for mild cognitive impairment (often seen as short-term memory loss that is either subjective or confirmed by rigorous memory tests) as well as dementia (moderate to severe short-term memory loss that causes a lack of independence). A recent study indicated that type 2 diabetes also accelerated the rate at which those with mild cognitive impairment progress to a diagnosis of dementia. The dementia may be either caused by Alzheimer’s disease, vascular disease or both. Individuals with both mild cognitive impairment and diabetes are at greater risk of becoming more seriously and cognitively impaired over time. As is true of most studies, the studied population consisted of mostly whites of European decent and the design of the study was retrospective or epidemiological. As there […]
