AUSTIN: Some of the cats treated with the highest dose have survived past three years of age and have gone on to have kittens, says Charles Vite. “The cats that were untreated die at six months of age, but the cats who were being treated looked normal at six months of age. It was a pretty astonishing finding.”
A compound that is effective for cats with a version of Niemann-Pick Disease (NPC) is safe enough to be tested on children with the disease, say researchers. Niemann-Pick Disease type C, often referred to as “childhood Alzheimer’s” because of the progressive mental and physical decline seen in the children it afflicts, affects only one person in 150,000. There is no specific treatment — only drugs to treat the symptoms.
However, new research reports that cats with NPC show vast improvements when treated with a compound called cyclodextrin. While NPC typically results in inexorable neurological decline, administering cyclodextrin into the fluid around the cats’ brains largely halted the progression of the disease…