BREAKTHROUGH DRUG SLOWS ALZHEIMER’S!
MIND-ROBBING Alzheimer’s can be diagnosed years before symptoms emerge — and now a breakthrough plaque-busting drug appears to slow the disease’s development to a crawl! According to a gamechanging study, the injectable drug, Lecanemab, smashes beta-amyloid, a protein that forms plaque in the brain and is linked to cell-killing tau protein plaque.
Disrupting the development of beta-amyloid reduces Alzheimer’s progression by 27 percent after 18 months, researchers say. But the new drug must be given in the disease’s earliest stages, which is why early detection is imperative.
Lund University study leader Oskar Hansson explains, “Changes occur in the brain between ten and 20 years before any clear symptoms of Alzheimer’s develop. It’s only when tau begins to spread that nerve cells die — and a person experiences the first cognitive problems.”
His scientific team followed 1,325 participants who did not have obvious cognitive impairment. People with both proteins had a 20 to 40 times higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s at followup a few years later. “When both beta-amyloid and tau are present in the brain, it’s no longer a risk, but a diagnosis,” says neurologist Hansson. Meanwhile, researchers at Britain’s Cambridge University found people who eventually developed Alzheimer’s scored poorly on cognitive tests taken five to nine years earlier. An estimated 6.5 million Americans have Alzheimer’s, but the injection offers new hope to help develop life-changing treatments, scientists say.