Your Immune Cell Can Treat, Prevent Alzheimer's

                In a breakthrough, an antibody that can almost clear the visible signs of Alzheimer’s disease from the brain has been discovered. Researchers scanned the brains of people with the degenerative condition as they were given doses of the drug, which is based on an immune cell taken from the blood of elderly people aged up to 100 who showed no signs of disease. After a year, all the toxic “amyloid plaques” that build up in patients disappeared from the brains of those given the highest doses of the antibody. The findings suggest the plaques are part of the cause of the disease – not simply a byproduct.

                One of the researchers, described what they found when they scanned the brain of patients given either a placebo or three different doses of the antibody, called aducanumab. One year later, the images of the placebo group were unchanged. In the antibody group, where patients were given 10mg of dose, reduction in amyloid plaques was visible – the higher the dose, the larger the degree of reduction. Compared to other studies, the effect sixe of this drug is unprecedented. Confirmation that an antiamyloid plaque treatment slows cognitive decline would be a game changer for how we treat and prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

                The research showed the antibody robustly reduced amyloid pathology in a small group of people in very early stages of testing then go on to fall in larger trials. No existing treatments for Alzheimer’s directly interfere with the disease process – and so a drug that slows the progress of the disease by clearing amyloid would be a significant step.