Drug Holds Off Alzheimers Disease
April 13, 2005 (Miami Beach, Fla.) -- For the first time, a drug appears to delay the development of Alzheimer's disease, but its effects wear off after about a year, researchers say.
The drug, Aricept, is only a stopgap for people with early memory problems. Eventually, memory and other mental functions begin to slip and the person develops Alzheimer's disease, says Ronald Petersen, MD, PhD, professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
"Aricept pushes back the diagnosis for about a year," he tells KB120.
Also, vitamin E has no beneficial effect in holding off Alzheimer's, he says.
Mild cognitive impairment causes subtle but measurable memory problems that are not yet severe enough to be considered Alzheimer's. Many people with this condition go on to develop Alzheimer's disease.
The findings were reported at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology and simultaneously published online by The New England Journal of Medicine.
The Alzheimer's Association estimates that 4.5 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease, a degenerative brain disease that slowly wipes out memory and eventually leads to dementia and death. With the aging of America, 13 million Americans will be victims of the disorder by 2050 if a cure isn't found.
For years, doctors have been searching for early treatment to arrest -- or at least curb -- the progression of Alzheimer's disease.
Aricept, used to improve symptoms in people with early Alzheimer's disease, seemed like a good choice to try because it boosts levels of a brain chemical that is deficient in people with Alzheimer's disease. Likewise, researchers say that cell damage from oxidative stress, which is known to increase with age, may also contribute to the disorder. This makes vitamin E, a potent antioxidant, another attractive candidate for early treatment.
The new study involved 770 volunteers with mild cognitive impairment. "The hallmark symptom is forgetfulness -- forgetting not just the car keys but important information you used to remember easily. You have memory problems but can still perform tasks such as doing the taxes," Petersen says.
In the study, about a third of the participants each received 10 milligrams of Aricept daily, 2,000 IU of vitamin E daily, or a placebo. All volunteers were also given a daily multivitamin.
A total of 212 people developed possible or probable Alzheimer's disease over the three-year study period.
Overall, there was no difference among the three groups: About 16% of people developed Alzheimer's disease each year regardless of whether they took Aricept, vitamin E, or placebo, Petersen says.
But when the researchers looked at each of the six-month checkups, they discovered that volunteers in the Aricept group were less likely to show signs of dementia at the six-month and12-month visits than were volunteers in the placebo or vitamin E groups.
"But after that point the groups came together," Peterson says.
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