Now that I have given you some background on Alzheimer's Disease, I want to let your know what a wonder drug Metformin may be. It is being written about more and more in relationship to how Metformin helps with lung cancer, now Alzheimer's, and of course diabetes. This article says that it could be a potential treatment of Alzheimer's disease.
The paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, found that metformin can reduce the amount of the abnormal tau protein in the brains of mice. Healthy nerve cells produce tau; however, in Alzheimer's, the abnormal form is produced and does not function correctly.
The Alzheimer's Society made the following comment - “Previous research has suggested that metformin reduces the risk of dementia in diabetic people.” What is of value is that this drug is already safe for people and can tested more quickly than a new drug. While research will still be necessary to understand the link between diabetes and Alzheimer's disease, this is a great piece of news.
The next piece of good news for those facing alzheimer's is the finding that people who are already taking TNF blockers for rheumatoid arthritis may possibly reducing their chances of developing Alzheimer's disease. The study shows that TNF blockers lowers the risk by 55 percent of preventing or stopping the development of Alzheimer's disease.
TNF blockers neutralize a protein called tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF) that overproduce in inflammatory diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. TNF is also elevated in the cerebrospinal fluid of Alzheimer's patients and the higher levels correlate with the progression of the disease.
With both of these drugs, metformin and TNF blockers, this gives more hope for potential help in slowing or even stopping the progression of Alzheimer's.
This is the final in this series. More may be available in future studies.
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