New Alzheimer's Treatment Clears Plaques from Brains of Mice Within Hours

https://www.sciencealert.com/new-alzheimers-treatment-clears-plaques-from-brains-of-mice-within-hours

by amichail • 9 months ago

143 115 9 months ago

jader2013• 9 months ago

Within hours of the first injection, the animal brains showed a nearly 45 percent reduction in clumps of amyloid-beta plaques, a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.
The mice had previously shown signs of cognitive decline, but after all three doses, the animals performed on par with their healthy peers in spatial learning and memory tasks. The benefits lasted at least six months.

1. This is great news… for mice with Alzheimer’s that don’t mind treatments every 6 months.

2. It’s crazy to think about something like this actually curing Alzheimer’s in humans, even if for just 6 months. Even more so if repeated doses have the same effects.

3. As with all of these studies, mice != humans, but it’s nice to have hope.

Side note: the temporary part of #2 makes me think about The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey [1]. It’s hard to fathom having a relative “come back” like that for a short time. Or even permanently.

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13820498

nharada• 9 months ago

If this was effective on humans I think most people would accept having treatments 2x a year

copperx• 9 months ago

One must live a very privileged life to mind a 2x a year inconvenience in exchange for a working brain.

I wouldn't mind 10x a day injections if it keeps Alzheimer's at bay. Actually, I wouldn't mind a continuous IV drip.

jader2013• 9 months ago

Of course, but that’s assuming:

1. There aren’t serious side effects that make it more of a tradeoff

2. The price isn’t on the order of 6-7 figures (or possibly less for some)

bartread2• 9 months ago

If it was effective on humans I think people would accept daily treatments, were it to be necessary - Alzheimer’s is just that awful.

xattt• 9 months ago

The alternative is 24/7 care in a long-term care facility with multiple RCWs per floor and a couple of RNs. There are definitely enough Human Resources available to support this initiative.

whycome• 9 months ago

I don’t know why this isn’t a case where human subjects for the tests aren’t allowed.

jpollock2• 9 months ago

If the disease is severe enough to justify an untested treatment with unknown toxicity they aren't aware enough to grant consent.

wahnfrieden2• 9 months ago

Human can’t consent in this case but they can feel immense pain and suffering still in ways that failed experimentation could invoke. Which may be worse than further decay and eventual death.

qwertytyyuu• 9 months ago

This test shows effectiveness, they also need to go through trials to test for safety and unintended side effects

jryb• 9 months ago

You’re not seeing all the other candidate treatments that made things worse. If it just gives everyone a heart attack immediately the question would be, why didn’t you try this out on mice first?

coldtea7• 9 months ago

Because instead of curing their Alzheimer it might cause them to die faster with big side-effects if it's not tested well first.

Eventually they will be allowed and there will be a human trial. Not when they're still experimenting.

Just because someone has Alzheimer doesn't mean they're automatically a lab test subject.

busyant• 9 months ago

Human trials may eventually be allowed, but I suspect that the results are preliminary and much work still needs to be done to assess the drug's safety before it makes it to humans.

Let me tell you a story about a biotech startup that I worked at many moons ago.

- We were trying to develop new antibiotics to treat certain bacterial infections.

- We had created a new antibiotic that was chemically similar to an existing, commercially successful antibiotic.

- But our drug was ~2-4× more potent at killing certain pathogenic bacteria than the existing med.

- Sounds good for us, right?

- Well, the commercially successful antibiotic was also toxic to humans if administered for "long" periods (it causes severe anemia if administered for 20+ days [I may not remember the precise details here]).

- Therefore, we were concerned that if our drug was 2-4× more potent at killing the microbes, it might also be 2-4× more toxic to people.

- To obtain approval for human tests, we had to run toxicity tests of our drug using several non-human species. Those results were mixed (toxic in some species, non-toxic in others), but we did eventually get approval.

- Unfortunately, the original concerns were correct: our drug caused severe anemia within ~3 days (again, specifics may be wrong), which means that particular candidate died in Phase 1 (initial human trial assessing drug safety).

Thankfully, the severe anemia was reversible in our test subjects (stop taking the drug, and the anemia went away)

b1122• 9 months ago

#2 isn't necessarily so even. They said the effects lasted at least 6 months, not "only". I haven't read the study, but it sounds to me that it was 6 months of success then publish.

dmurray2• 9 months ago

Also, lab mice only live for ~2 years. A study of mice for significantly longer than that doesn't make sense.

tinco• 9 months ago

Yes, and consider how an animal that lives only 2 years gets Alzheimer's in the first place. They must be genetically engineered to have super turbo Alzheimer's. Normal Alzheimer's doesn't progress so fast I think.

_factor• 9 months ago

I immediately thought of Awakenings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awakenings_(book) also.

coldtea7• 9 months ago

1. This is great news… for mice with Alzheimer’s that don’t mind treatments every 6 months.

Would you rather test it directly on humans?

Do you think they did it not caring whether it's also eventually applicable to humans all?

Do you think if the treatment reaches humans and is effective, and Alzheimer’s patient would "mind treatments every 6 months"?

bartread2• 9 months ago

It’s pretty clear that the commenter you’re responding to is making the point that a treatment effective in mice still has a long way to go before it’s viable for use on humans, assuming it is ever viable to use on humans.

Mice and humans are quite different, and whilst it looks like this treatment actually reverses the effects of dementia in mice, it’s far from clear that it would have the same impact on humans. By the time people start exhibiting Alzheimer’s symptoms, the brain will already have sustained quite a lot of damage - by which I mean death of neurons - so it’s hard to see how this would actually reverse the disease, as opposed to simply slowing or halting its progression, without these neurons being replaced.

hard_times• 9 months ago

Aren't you a ray of sunshine...

rickydroll• 9 months ago

#2 reminds me more of *Flowers for Algernon"

This resonates with me particularly strongly, as one of the many failures of my body is that I live with NPH (normal pressure hydrocephalus).

Almost a week ago, I had a spinal tap as a diagnostic test to see if I truly had NPH or if there was a different reason for the bubble of fluid in my brain. An hour after the tap, I felt my arms and legs moving more freely than they had in years, and I was able to move significantly faster than before. And now, a week later, I can feel the stiffness setting in again. I'm sliding my feet more, and I can't move as quickly.

I don't know how to characterize the sense of loss I feel. As my body returns to the pre-spinal tap "normal." I'm left with the fading sensation of a freer movement and a clearer mind, with the hope that one of the treatments for NPH will restore that better self.

I can only imagine, with a bit of horror, the sense someone would have coming out of the fog of Alzheimer's, feeling normal for months. Then the anxiety one might feel, as the Alzheimer's fog returns, and be scared that it might not go away again with the next dose—a real "Flowers for Algernon" moment.

I still need to talk to my neurologist to find out if I qualify for the CFS shunt/drain operation. It would be nice to have a clearer mind and freer body, even if I do become part Borg.

pschuegr• 9 months ago

fascinating post, thank you

yencabulator• 9 months ago

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey makes me think of Flowers for Algernon.

https://raio.org/FlowersForAlgernon.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_Algernon

PaulKeeble• 9 months ago

So far all the prior Amyloid clearing drugs did not cause recovery in people despite doing so in mice. Its meant a lot of researchers now aren't convinced that the Beta Amyloid is the problem in Alzheimer's. I hope this one ends up differently, its definitely a lot faster and more effective than the others at clearing.

tombert2• 9 months ago

Well that's depressing. My biggest fear, and this isn't a bad setup for a joke, is early-onset Alzheimers. I don't think I'm especially high-risk for it, but I did have a single great-grandfather who got it so technically it does run in my family. It seems so horrible, having your brain sort of deteriorate and losing all your memories, and being a burden to everyone.

Ideally I never get it, but if I do get I hope it's in like my late 90's, or even better by the time I get it they already have a cure, though the fact this might not work for humans makes me a little sad.

ineedaj0b2• 9 months ago

there’s some interesting treatment in china that seems promising. something about unclogging drains in the neck. friend told me it looked ‘possible’.

the whole western field is 15-20 years behind because some researcher lied about plaque data and everyone spent all their time chasing the lead. I think you’ll see useful therapies in 15-20 years from the west, maybe sooner if all the some ai hype pans out.

or the Chinese thing turns out to work! can’t tell myself. there’s probably an American who will try it at some point and publish a case study. Very tough to judge Chinese papers..

here’s an overview: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12121576/

adastra229• 9 months ago

And what?

(Or was that the joke?)

orangecat• 9 months ago

See https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/in-defense-of-the-amyloid-h... for an IMO compelling argument that amyloid really is the underlying cause. The theory is that amyloid buildup causes misfolded tau proteins which cause the cognitive damage. So reducing amyloid in people already suffering from Alzheimer's doesn't do much because they already have excessive tau; at best it might slow down the progression.

mcmoor• 9 months ago

I've read this article before, and it makes me think OP article, even if working on humans, would still not alleviate Alzheimer.

irjustin• 9 months ago

I was wondering and found the drug Leqembi, started trials in 2007 and basically didn't finish trials until 2022, approved in 2023.

man that's a lifetime for this drug's trials.

oliwarner3• 9 months ago

Per sibling comments, if this ceases or slows the progression of damage, that holds value. It's hard to measure quality of memory in mice so we don't even know what this found "recovery" means. But it still has immense value as a preventative.

MobileVet• 9 months ago

Even if it is later proved that Amyloids are NOT at fault, doesn’t the ability to remove them effectively improve our ability to make that very determination? My impression of this is at the very worst it isolates that variable and pushes the overall understanding forward significantly.

stubish• 9 months ago

My guess is that removing Beta Amyloid plaques is not a cure. However, it may be a preventative, the trick being to remove plaque before damage turns into Alzheimer's.

notmyjob• 9 months ago

Creatine seems to make some marginal difference if taken in sufficient dosages, anecdotally. More research is underway.

doubleblind• 9 months ago

There is also this study (https://doi.org/10.1002/trc2.70101), showing some benefit regarding cognition in alzheimers patients. AFAIK it's the first human trial in this context though, so it is still very preliminary.

eagsalazar2• 9 months ago

Here is the big question: How profitable would this be for big pharma if it really worked? If the answer isn't an enormous number, this isn't going anywhere beyond the researchers who published their work.

stoneman24• 9 months ago

If the cost to the UK is reported to be 42 billion per year [0] (need to do more verification on this) and I quickly couldn’t see a figure for the US, then I believe there is an argument for a nationalisation policy where the government writes a very large cheque to the company and then makes the treatment free to everyone.

A bit socialisation of health care for some but the benefits to the economy may well be worth the trade alone, never mind the individual benefits

[0] https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/blog/how-much-does-dementia-ca...

jbstack2• 9 months ago

The problem is, you're not just writing a large cheque in return for a working treatment. You're writing a large cheque to roll the dice on some research that might (and probably won't, statistically) result in a working treatment. So you need a very large cheque so that you can fund multiple research projects in the hopes that one of them will give you a treatment. Even then, there's the possibility that none of them will work and you've got nothing to show for any of the money spent.

logicalfails• 9 months ago

To play the devils advocate, does that take into the "cost" to the government if pensioners are living longer because Alzheimers was cured? I could easily see this turning into a debate behind politicians closed doors of

"If "x" % of the population has their life is extended an average of "y" years, how much more does that cost in pension payouts over the life of the individual vs the medical savings from curing Alzheimers?"

ChrisArchitect• 9 months ago

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45528308

lloydatkinson• 9 months ago

Can’t wait for how this will take decades just to decide if they’ll try this on humans.

throwaway81523• 9 months ago

There's lots of very elderly Alzheimers patients in hospice care... might be an easier clinical trial to get approved than some alternatives.

oliwarner3• 9 months ago

Consenting Alzheimer's patients is ethically tricky even at early stages of the disease. Just as it is for anyone staring down the barrel at a particularly nasty degenerative disease.

I'm with you though. I know I'd want it more than the Alzheimer's.

PlunderBunny• 9 months ago

I wonder if it's possible to 'pre-consent' before onset, and if that would be considered consent?

qgin• 9 months ago

I wonder if this could be used in cases of central amyloid angiopathy. I had a family member whose blood vessels in the brain essentially turned into fragile glass from this (and ultimately hemorrhaged).

New Alzheimer's Treatment Clears Plaques from Brains of Mice Within Hours

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