12 new Alzheimer’s drugs on horizon
which could be given to every 50-year-old in the UK – produced within the next decade.
This would cost about £9billion a year – but could slash almost £13billion off the overall cost of dementia treatment.
Hilary Evans, chief executive of Alzheimer's Research UK, said: “With over one million people in the UK expected to be living with dementia by 2025, we have a duty to ensure that people with dementia and their families can benefit from innovations.”
The charity commissioned the London School of Economics to model the impact of five hypothetical Alzheimer's treatments.
But the report, Thinking Differently, also highlighted progress in the real world, with 12 diseasemodifying drugs due to be completing Phase III trials by 2021.
Report co-author Professor Jonathan Schott, from University College London's Dementia Research Centre, said: “When we have a successful trial, and I say when, this will be headline news around the world and the demand will be instant and huge.”
beetroots can slow death of brain cells
A COMPOUND in beetroot – betanin – giving the vegetable its red colour could aid sufferers from Alzheimer’s, researchers said yesterday.
Li-June Ming of South Florida University in the US said they found it suppressed chemical changes linked to the death of nerve cells.
He added: “Betanin shows some promise as an inhibitor of certain chemical reactions in the brain that are involved in the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.”
The findings offering hope of a new drug were presented to the American Chemical Society.