Will another antidiabetic drug help with Alzheimer's disease?
Researchers from the Boston University School of Medicine, working under the guidance of Dr. Wendy Qiu, have found that not only metformin, long known for its anti–cancer (albeit selective) effect, but also another antidiabetic drug – pramlintide - reduces the number of beta-amyloid plaques in brain tissue and improves the ability to learn and memorization in two experimental models of Alzheimer's disease.
Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disease that affects the brain of elderly people and is accompanied by severe cognitive impairment. To date, Alzheimer's disease is incurable and is a serious problem for society and healthcare, as the number of patients suffering from it is rapidly increasing.
One of the reasons for the ineffectiveness of experimental drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease is their inability to penetrate the brain through the blood-brain barrier. The second serious obstacle is that, on average, it takes 10-15 years to develop a new targeted drug and then verify its safety and effectiveness.
According to Dr. Qiu, many existing drugs, on the contrary, easily penetrate into the brain tissue and can have a positive effect on the condition of patients with Alzheimer's disease. However, most pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to conduct research on expanding the scope of existing drugs due to their potentially low profitability and certain limitations associated with the patenting procedure.
In experiments on two mouse models of Alzheimer's disease, the authors analyzed the effect of injections of amylin and pramlintide on the pathogenesis of the disease. The therapy not only reduced the number of amyloid plaques in the brain tissue of animals, but also reduced the concentration of beta-amyloid peptides. The animals also began to show better results when performing tests for the ability to learn and memorize: the Y-maze and the Morris water maze.
Pramlintide is a pharmacological analogue of the peptide hormone amylin synthesized by the pancreas. It easily penetrates the blood-brain barrier and has previously demonstrated its safety in clinical studies involving patients with diabetes mellitus.
Moreover, the study of 330 blood plasma samples showed that the blood of patients with Alzheimer's disease contains more amylin than people who do not suffer from this disease.
Researchers believe that the use of synthetic analogues of amylin for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease will not only cleanse the brain tissue of patients from abnormal beta-amyloid, but also improve glucose metabolism and the condition of brain vessels. They note that if a clinical study proves the effectiveness of pramlintide in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, its use for the treatment of this disease can be approved within 3-5 years.
Article by H Zhu et al. Intraperitoneal injection of the pancreatic peptide amylin potentially reduces behavioral impairment and brain amyloid pathology in murine models of Alzheimer's disease is published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
Evgeniya Ryabtseva
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on Medical Xpress materials:
Diabetes drug shows promise in reducing Alzheimer's disease in an experimental model.
25.03.2014