Could Diabetes Medication Help Alzheimer's Patients?

Filed in archive News on April 30, 2006

It's a hot theory: that diabetes and Alzheimer's are linked. It's a scary notion, but also a positive one: we know far more about the cause and treatment of diabetes than we do Alzheimer's, so perhaps the link will allow a new horizon of treatment options for the devastating mental condition.

Researchers are excited about a pill, designed to treat diabetes, that may be effective in halting the progress of Alzheimer's.

A clinical trial will soon begin, supplying thousands of Alzheimer's patients with the diabetes drug Avandia, to halt the progress of the disease.

A preliminary experiment involving 511 Alzheimer's patients found signals that Avandia might help...

Those results, combined with other evidence that the diabetes pathway is important, have Avandia maker GlaxoSmithKline poised to open three Phase III clinical trials this summer to test whether the diabetes drug, also called rosiglitazone, might protect certain patients' brains.

Diabetes has long been listed a risk factor for Alzheimer's later in life because it damages blood vessels that supply the brain.


You can read the rest of the article here, which also lists other risk factors for Alzheimer's, and early behaviors that may lead to the disease.

These are truly remarkable, hopeful times that we live in.