Why We Shouldn’t Focus on Developing Alzheimer’s Treatments

Recently, The New York Times announced the creation of a partnership between the National Institutes of Health, 10 pharmaceutical companies and seven nonprofit organizations dedicated to the development of drugs to treat, among other things, Alzheimer’s disease. While at first blush, this five-year, $230 million effort may seem noble, the ultimate motivation for this seemingly ecumenical event is suspect. Alzheimer’s disease affects some 5.4 million Americans, and according to a recent report from the RAND Corporation, costs Americans in the neighborhood of $200 billion each year to care for those afflicted. To contextualize this figure, it represents about twice what is spent on caring for heart disease patients. But it doesn’t factor in the emotional expense borne by the family members of Alzheimer’s patients whose lives are irreparably compromised by this disease. Drug companies, as the Times article reported, “… have invested staggering amounts of money in developing drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease, for example, but again and again the medications have failed in testing.” Just last month the New England Journal of Medicine reported that two of the latest candidates for treating Alzheimer’s disease had failed, miserably, to provide any meaningful benefit. Even more disturbing was the recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association  demonstrating that the Alzheimer’s drug memantine, currently FDA approved for the “treatment” ...
Source: Renegade Neurologist - A Blog by David Perlmutter, MD, FACN - Category: Neurologists Authors: Tags: Science Alzheimer’s fat FDA Memantine NIH olive oil Vitamin E Source Type: blogs