Diabetes drug could lead Alzheimer's treatment
(an opportunity to develop drugs)
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A University of Alberta researcher may be making strides in the ongoing fight against Alzheimer's disease, using a drug originally intended to treat diabetes. Dr. Jack Jhamandas, a researcher in the university's faculty of medicine and dentistry, discovered during lab tests that the drug AC253, which was developed to treat diabetic patients but never actually made it to market, could instead be used to potentially prevent and treat Alzheimer's.
In tests conducted by Jhamandas's six-person research team using living human brain cells grown in a lab, the drug was found to block the dangerous effects of a protein that is found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. "This protein causes a dysfunction and the death of nerve cells in the brain that are involved in memory and cognition," Jhamandas said.
For years, researchers have speculated about a link between diabetes and Alzheimer's, but the specific nature of that connection isn't fully understood.
A protein similar to the one found in the brain of Alzheimer's patients is also found in the pancreas of diabetic patients, which is what set Jhamandas and his team, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, on their research path. "We had the notion that perhaps if this compound shares some similarities with the brain protein that's found in Alzheimer's patients, we could block that," he said. "And lo and behold, it turns out that brain cells that are exposed to this amyloid (protein) that normally die, are protected." Read more: calgaryherald.com
Personalised nutrition
Personalized nutrition – seen by many as the future of nutrition – may take a step closer as scientists apply the metabolomics approach to identify individual metabolic ‘types’. Read more: nutraingredients.com
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