Study: Insulin Sensitizer Drug Demonstrates Positive Results for Alzheimer's Disease

At the International Conference on Alzheimer's Drug Discovery, interesting research was presented about a potential new medication to treat Alzheimer's disease. The drug, MSDC-0160, is an insulin sensitizer originally developed to treat diabetes. Researchers have been focusing lately on the connection between diabetes and Alzheimer's disease since approximately half of people with type 2 diabetes will go on to develop Alzheimer's disease. (Not knowing that this research would be announced, I just recently reported research on a screen that determines the chances of a person with type 2 diabetes developing Alzheimer's based on specific health conditions and events here.) Researchers at the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center in Chicago tested MSDC-0160 in a phase 2a clinical trial. The participants consisted of people age 55-85, without diabetes and with mild dementia due to Alzheimer's disease. They received either MSDC-0160 or a placebo (fake pill) once a day for 90 days. The results, measured by fluordeoxyglucose positron-emission tomography (FDG-PET), showed that the participants who received the drug maintained glucose metabolism in key areas of the brain over the course of the study, whereas those who received the placebo showed significant decline in the processing of glucose in those same brain areas. What does this mean? Potentially, if the maintenance of glucose functioning in the brain translates into the maintenance of cognitive function, there could be a whole new...
Source: About Alzheimers Disease - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news