DALLAS: Researchers say they have preliminary evidence that drug therapy may be able to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
The team from the UK, Sweden and the Netherlands have shown in preclinical studies that a drug called bexarotene seems to work as a ‘neurostatin’, preventing the degeneration of nerve cells in a model of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) by preventing the production of neurotoxic beta-amyloid aggregates.
They suggest that – in much the same way as statins are used to prevent cardiovascular disease in people with elevated cholesterol – bexarotene or related compounds could be given to people at risk of developing AD-type dementia…