Debating The Success Of Alzheimer's Research
(No magic bullet against Alzheimer's)
(No magic bullet against Alzheimer's)
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The feature questions why so many trials are failing at the phase 3 clinical trial stage and asks whether the animal models used prior to this are the most effective way to test the drugs. It also suggests treatments should perhaps start to focus more on the changes in the brain that happen before symptoms like memory loss start to appear. However, it notes that these are difficult to replicate in animal models.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) sponsored the court, appointing a jury of 15 medical scientists with no vested interests in Alzheimer's research. They would hear the evidence and reach a judgment on the data. For a day and a half in the spring, researchers presented their cases, describing studies and explaining what they had hoped to show. The jury also heard from scientists from Duke University who had been commissioned to look at evidence — hundreds of research papers — and weigh it. And the jurors had read the papers, preparing for this day.
The studies included research on nearly everything proposed to prevent the disease: exercise, mental stimulation, healthful diet, social engagement, nutritional supplements, anti-inflammatory drugs or those that lower cholesterol or blood pressure, even the idea that people who marry or stay trim might be saved. And they included research on traits that might hasten Alzheimer's onset, such as not having much of an education or being a loner.
It is an issue that has taken on intense importance because scientists recently reported compelling evidence that two types of tests, PET scans of Alzheimer's plaque in the brain and tests of spinal fluid, can find signs of the disease years before people have symptoms. That gives rise to the question: What, if anything, can people do to prevent it? The jury's verdict was depressing and distressing. Nothing has been found to prevent or delay the devastating disease, which ceaselessly kills brain cells, eventually leaving people mute, incontinent, unable to feed themselves, unaware of who they are or who their family and friends are. "Currently," the panel wrote, "no evidence of even moderate scientific quality exists to support the association of any modifiable factor (such as nutritional supplements, herbal preparations, dietary factors, prescription or nonprescription drugs, social or economic factors, medical conditions, toxins or environmental exposures) with reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease." Read more: seattletimes.nwsource.com
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) sponsored the court, appointing a jury of 15 medical scientists with no vested interests in Alzheimer's research. They would hear the evidence and reach a judgment on the data. For a day and a half in the spring, researchers presented their cases, describing studies and explaining what they had hoped to show. The jury also heard from scientists from Duke University who had been commissioned to look at evidence — hundreds of research papers — and weigh it. And the jurors had read the papers, preparing for this day.
The studies included research on nearly everything proposed to prevent the disease: exercise, mental stimulation, healthful diet, social engagement, nutritional supplements, anti-inflammatory drugs or those that lower cholesterol or blood pressure, even the idea that people who marry or stay trim might be saved. And they included research on traits that might hasten Alzheimer's onset, such as not having much of an education or being a loner.
It is an issue that has taken on intense importance because scientists recently reported compelling evidence that two types of tests, PET scans of Alzheimer's plaque in the brain and tests of spinal fluid, can find signs of the disease years before people have symptoms. That gives rise to the question: What, if anything, can people do to prevent it? The jury's verdict was depressing and distressing. Nothing has been found to prevent or delay the devastating disease, which ceaselessly kills brain cells, eventually leaving people mute, incontinent, unable to feed themselves, unaware of who they are or who their family and friends are. "Currently," the panel wrote, "no evidence of even moderate scientific quality exists to support the association of any modifiable factor (such as nutritional supplements, herbal preparations, dietary factors, prescription or nonprescription drugs, social or economic factors, medical conditions, toxins or environmental exposures) with reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease." Read more: seattletimes.nwsource.com
Mass reject of herbal health claims
Hundreds of proposed botanical-health relationships ranging from antioxidant activity to skin health to immunity to gut health will almost certainly be rejected if the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) holds to its current methodologies, according to an EU herbal group. Read more: nutraingredients.com
