Recent Advances in Alzheimer’s Research

As baby boomers age, the number of patients in the United States with Alzheimer’s disease could as much as triple, placing an incredible strain on the healthcare and social welfare systems. As a result, researchers are utilizing advances in science and technology to understand how to prevent the disease from occurring, how to diagnose the disease before cognitive and behavioral symptoms appear, and how to treat the disease to slow or even stop its progression. Hopefully, Alzheimer’s research will allow the disease to one day become a manageable, or even preventable, condition.

Dementia can be caused by a number of disease processes unrelated to Alzheimer’s disease; therefore, before the development of more advanced diagnostic tools in the late twentieth century, the only accurate way to diagnose Alzheimer’s was post-mortem with an autopsy. Now memory and cognition tests taken over a period of time, along with medical tests to rule out other illnesses, can allow a high level of accuracy in the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease—as high as 90%. Other Alzheimer’s research suggests that advanced technology such as MRIs and PET scans could allow physicians to look into the brains of their patients and detect structural changes that indicate the presence of the disease before symptoms even begin. In fact, government scientists are so confident about the diagnostic abilities of a PET scan that Medicare will now cover the expensive procedure in cases when it is difficult to make a diagnosis. The earlier doctors are able to diagnose the disease, the better they are able to treat it using current medications.

In addition to finding ways to diagnose the disease earlier and with greater accuracy, Alzheimer’s research is also attempting to discover ways to stop the disease itself with gene therapies and new medications. Researchers have recently studied several genes that may stop the production of plaque in the brain or devour the plaque, and other research has been done on a type of cell in the brain, which could be defective in Alzheimer’s patients, that might be involved in preventing a build-up of plaque. Another rare antibiotic called clioquinol could be useful in preventing plaque. Research on cardiovascular disease has led to studies of “statin” drugs, which lower cholesterol, as well as Vitamin B6, B12, and Folic Acid, which lower levels of homocysteine in the blood; both cholesterol and homocysteine levels could play a role in Alzheimer’s disease.

Finally, Alzheimer’s research is also focusing on environmental and genetic factors that could influence the development of Alzheimer’s disease. For example, one recent study found a possible link between the development of Alzheimer’s disease and a person’s occupational history. Adults with mentally demanding occupations were less likely to develop the disease than adults with less mentally demanding occupations. Additionally, widespread genetic research could allow scientists to better understand the role different genes play in the development of Alzheimer’s disease, potentially leading to gene therapies. By examining the disease from a multi-dimensional perspective, researchers are more likely to find the one factor that could stop Alzheimer’s disease from being the menace that it currently is.