Possible Alzheimer’s Cure Discovered

Possible Alzheimer’s Cure Discovered

A recent study conducted in Britain may be close to changing the way brain diseases are treated, coming up with a pill that can stop the death of neurons.

While medication intended for humans is as far as a decade away, both researchers and the medical community seem to agree that a turning point was reached, some saying that the way humans treated degenerative brain diseases historically could change.

The research was performed by the MRC or Medical Research Council, and seemed to focus on the main cause of degenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson's, which is the oddly shaped proteins that stick together forming strings and sometimes even clumps.

The scientists focused not on preventing the grouping of the abnormal proteins but on the way the organism reacts to them. They did this by giving mice a stomach injection. The results are amazing with mice showing no signs of mental diseases five weeks later. They also lived longer than untreated mice that had the same disease.

While the news is truly exciting, human trials are a long way away, especially because of the nature of the side effects suffered by the treated mice. A serious drop in weight and raised blood sugar mean that the researchers still have some work to do, however, they managed to show that brain degeneration could hypothetically be stopped with an injection or a pill sometime in the not so distant future.

Posted by George Daniels on Saturday October 12 2013, 10:53 AM EST. Ref: irishtimes. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, Health. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0