PHILADELPHIA: One drug, an anti-cancer agent called bexarotene, has already been shown to prevent early brain changes linked to the disease in laboratory tests.
Scientists are in the process of identifying others that might be more effective.
The drugs have been dubbed “neurostatins” because they could be used in the same way statins are to reduce cholesterol and curb the risk of heart disease.
In this case they would be taken as a preventative strategy to keep out the seeds of Alzheimer’s, accumulating clumps of toxic protein in the brain.
Professor Michele Vendruscolo, from Cambridge University, who is leading the research, said: “This in terms of an approach for Alzheimer’s disease would be the equivalent of what statins do for heart conditions.
“So you would take them well in advance of developing the condition to reduce your risk.
“The dream would be to find a compound which is cheap and safe and therefore can be given early to everybody.”
He explained that Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative disease occur in old age when natural defences that prevent the formation of protein aggregates in the brain, and help to clear them away, start to fail.
“Our idea is that we should supplement these natural defences by this chemical means,” he said.
Bexarotene was the first of about a dozen potential neurostatins identified by the scientists.
Laboratory experiments showed that bexarotene delayed or completely prevented the formation of clumps of fragments of beta-amyloid protein, one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s.
Other tests were conducted on lab worms genetically modified to develop an Alzheimer’s-like condition.