By Robert Preidt
HealthDay reporter
MONDAY, Aug 2, 2021 (HealthDay News) – Could a drug used to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) help people with mild Alzheimer’s disease?
The results of a small new study suggest the strategy might work.
Riluzole has been used to slow the progression of ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, for more than 20 years. This phase 2 study found that the drug slowed the breakdown of brain metabolism and had positive effects on cognition in people with mild Alzheimer’s disease.
It included 50 patients aged 50 to 90 years who received either the drug (26) or a placebo (24) twice a day for six months.
“Using two types of brain scans as biomarkers – this study was able to measure improvements in brain metabolism in treated patients and correlate those improvements with cognitive changes and disease progression,” said study co-author Dr . Howard Fillit, Founding Director and Chief Science Officer of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation.
“It’s a reused drug that speeds the research process. It targets an important and under-explored biological mechanism that goes wrong with aging, and the rigorous design of this study measured both biomarkers and clinical outcomes,” noted Fillit in a press release from the foundation.
Riluzole targets a neurotransmitter in the brain called glutamate, which plays a crucial role in the ability of nerve cells to send signals to one another. Glutamate dysregulation is believed to set in motion a toxic cycle that is implicated in Alzheimer’s disease, the researchers said.
The study found significant changes in glutamate levels in patients who received the drug. The incidence of adverse events was the same between the patients taking riluzole and those taking placebo.
The results were recently published online in the journal Brain.
These results support a phase 3 study with a larger number of patients that will be followed up over a longer period of time to further evaluate the drug’s safety and effectiveness in Alzheimer’s disease patients, said lead researcher Dr. Ana Pereira, Assistant Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at the Icahn Medical School on Mount Sinai in New York City.
More information
The Alzheimer’s Association has more about Alzheimer’s disease.
SOURCE: Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, press release, July 28, 2021
Comments are closed.