Japanese Scientists Make Alzheimers Progress

grammar fascist writes "The AP wire reports that Japanese medical researchers have developed a DNA-based vaccine that reduces the brain plaque beta amyloid without the severe brain inflammation that plagued successes in 2002. From the story 'The deposits have been cut by between 15.5 percent and 38.5 percent in mice, with no major side effects, researchers said Monday in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [...] If all goes well, this type of treatment might be available for people in six or seven years, [lead researcher Yoh Matsumoto] said.'"

Comments

Headline Mix Up

[Sentri]

Anyone else read the headline and think: "why have the japanese made people's alzheimer's worse"

Re:Headline Mix Up

[grammar fascist]

Anyone else read the headline and think: "why have the japanese made people's alzheimer's worse"

When I submitted the story, I initially wrote the headline "Japanese Boffins Beat Alzheimer's Without Swelling," which, besides being much wittier, is obviously much clearer. Boffin swelling is a major problem in this type of research, and its defeat was very newsworthy.

Darn you, ScuttleMonkey! Darn you to heck!

Mice. Always.

[LiftOp]

Always the mice. Again with the mice.

Just ONCE I'd like to be cured of a disease ahead of the freakin' MICE.

Re:Mice. Always.

[nog_lorp]

Well, they are the supreme rulers of the universe, why do you think they always receive so much medical treatment?! As an aside, how is 4 minutes "not giving other slashdotters a chance to post"? I'm posting in a different damn article!

My Grandma

[Sergeant Beavis]

Can't wait six or seven years....

SO GET CRACKIN!

Fortunately, she can still remember everyone (after thinking about it for a few minutes), but she forgets what happened 2 minutes ago and gets easily confused. As you might suspect, she has to be cared for 24/7. Fortunately my Grandpa can be there for her. Unfortunately, a 90 year old man with a good brain still has a failing body to deal with.

Re:My Grandma

[jamesh]

I know it's a very sensitive issue, but why don't they have programs to test medications like this on people are basically doomed anyway. You don't get better from alzheimers disease. Sometimes you stop getting worse, but you don't get better.

I'd be quite happy to sign something now to the effect of "if I have dementia to the point where I don't even know who I am any more, and there is a potential cure or treatment, sign me up.". If it kills me, or shortens my remaining life then I haven't really lost much, those around me will have gained something as caring for someone like that is a huge burden (and often significantly shortens the life of the spouse if they are still alive), and will benefit the scientists who are testing the treatment, even if its "oh well... so it doesn't work on people afterall".

It's probably a bit late to ask me once my mind is gone though.

With alzheimers though, can they tell yet if it's that or something else without taking your brain out of year head and chopping it up? I remember quite a few years (>10) ago when I had a relative who was thus aflicted, there was lots of initial misdiagnosises (or whatever the plural of that word is), and they basically said that they only way to be sure was to wait until the patient had passed away.

What is so bad about Alzheimers?

[hsmith]

You make new friends every day!

Re:Alzheimers Prevention

[DigiShaman]

Even if they can cure it, the damage to the brain has already been done. We are talking about major brain tissue loss here. I doubt even stem cell therapy would help much depending how much damage you've taken.

Look at it this way. If you have Alzheimers, you're screwed! It's one of the many risks of being Human when you get older.

Alzheimer's Programs

[Anonymous Coward]

Wyeth and Elan have a drug, AAB-001, which is a follow-up to AN-1792, the drug described as causing brain swelling 2 years ago, except AAB-001 doesn't cause brain swelling and is in Phase II trials (i.e., in humans, and not monkeys), and should be in Phase III at the end of this year. AAB-001 reduces amyloid plaque build-up and there is some anecdotal evidence coming out of the Phase II trial that some patients have achieved significant improvement (although no patient can know for sure they are on AAB-001 since it is a blinded trial.) No need to look towards the Japanese for significant Alzheimer's research, Elan and Wyeth have several programs addressing this horrible disease and are way ahead of the pre-IND drugs described in this article.

Re:Alzheimer's Programs

[Anonymous Coward]

you do realize that for each overweight drug addict that died from viox, more then 100 got their only chance at enjoying life without constant pain? Ooops, CNN and the NY Times didn't want you to think about that, only that good Lawyers are saving us from the Evil Capitalists.

Biotech vs. IT Careers

[billstewart]

I'm 50. It'd be really nice if they've got that Alzheimer's vaccine down solid in 10 years and seriously improved by 20 years, because I really don't want to get it. It'll also be seriously good for US society if most of the baby boomers who would have been getting it avoid it, so you younger folks don't have to spend as much taking care of us, or at least can deal with mentally competent frail old people. While we're at it, I hope the get the cancer stuff nailed down.

I've been doing various IT-like things my whole career, whether it's programming, consulting, or whatever. It's been a lot of fun, and I'm not particularly a biotech type, but I hope the tools we've built over the last few decades help the biotech folks do a much better job.

Re:Biotech vs. IT Careers

[xtal]

Kinda makes you think about taking up smoking, eh?

Well you know. Smoking takes ten years off your life." Well it's the ten worst years, isn't it folks? It's the ones at the end! It's the wheelchair kidney dialysis fucking years. You can have those years!

Food for thought, as I watch my relatives fall victim to severe mental deterioration.

Re:Biotech vs. IT Careers

[slughead]

There's a huge link* to obesity + under-stimulation in the brain and Alzheimer's.

If you don't want to get it, keeping fit and doing brain-stimulation exercises (like programming) may* help.

* please note that I used the word 'may' in regards to a 'link', before you reply

At the very least, they have proven that your IQ raises and lowers depending on how stimulating your life is... There is also a strong correlation between getting girls and not being obese, which is always nice.

Re:Biotech vs. IT Careers

[glitch!]

Kinda makes you think about taking up smoking, eh?

You probably don't know how insightful your comment really is. There seems to be evidence of a link between alzheimers and acetylcholine in the brain and nicotine helping the overall situation. More study is obviously needed for us to find out if nicotine really does help treat or prevent alzheimers or if it is just some chance anomoly.

Food for thought, as I watch my relatives fall victim to severe mental deterioration.

Please, do a google search for "nicotine alzheimer's acetylcholine" and/or similar terms and see if you can dig up anything useful to your situation. I lost one of my grandfathers two decades ago to alzheimers and commercial tobaccco related diseases. Note the key point of commercial/poisonous tobacco here. He had to quit smoking many years before alzheimers kicked in, and now I have to wonder whether nicotine patches (or whatever) might have prevented the truly gut wrenching problems of alzheimers in his last few years of life.

Re:Biotech vs. IT Careers

[Eivind]

Except smoking significantly reduces your healthy years too. Smokers don't just on the average die sooner than non-smokers -- they also on the average get sick sooner. Really, it's a nonsense argument, if you really considered living those last sick years a net detriment rather than a net benefit, suicide at the point where you get sick would be the only logical choise.

Somehow, most people change their mind on this the minute they are sick. (ok, so some old people do commit suicide, but it's not exactly the majority.)

Re:Biotech vs. IT Careers

[jcr]

Dying from emphysema isn't a more pleasant alternative.

-jcr

Re:Biotech vs. IT Careers

[Bozdune]

Um, actually you DO know you're losing it. That's even scarier.

Re:Biotech vs. IT Careers

[emh203]

Kinda makes you think about taking up smoking, eh?

What a stupid comment. You really think that lung cancer is a peaceful way to die? Painfully wasting away in a bed isn't much better. I am watching my Mother-in-law go through this with that same attitude.

Re:Tobacco

[Joebert]

I've also heard that nicotine also slows the effects of Alzheimers.

And here all this time I thought grandpa walked around with one of thoose patches on his forehead because he was crazy.

No, no, no!!

[McBainLives]

You're not supposed to make it progress, you're supposed to make it slow down!!!

Oh, wait- /grumble

Darn RSS headline-only POS...

Is it still a problem of cause or effect?

[bunbuntheminilop]

When I did biochemistry back in the day, the plaques were obviously in greater amounts in those with the disease, but these plaques were on everyone's brains. Nobody knew if this was the cause of the disease or an effect of the disease. Has this changed? Is there now proof that the plaques actually cause the disease?

Has someone shown yet what they actually do?

Re:Is it still a problem of cause or effect?

[LazyDino]

Although plaques are one of the hallmarks of the disease, they're probably not the cause. As you pointed out, healthy brain tissue contains plaques, and plaque formation isn't necessarily correlated with the progression of the disease.

However, beta-amyloid seems to play a significant role. "Older" patients with Down's syndrome often develop Alzheimer's disease, and this is thought to be due to additional expression of APP (amyloid precursor protein), which is the precursor of beta-amyloid. The gene for APP is found on chromosome 21, the extra chromosome found in Down's syndrome patients. People with early-onset forms of Alzheimer's often have mutations in genes that are related to APP processing. Beta-amyloid seems to be upstream in the pathway that causes the hyperphosphorylation of tau, which is the protein involved in tangles, the other hallmark of the disease. Vaccination experiments involving beta-amyloid show reduced neurotoxicity and the resoration of long-term potentiation (LTP), a mechanism involved in memory formation.

In spite of all this evidence, APP and beta-amyloid are found in healthy brain tissue, so there's something else at work that involves beta-amyloid but not plaques. Some researchers believe that small, soluble oligomers of beta-amyloid (sometimes referred to as ADDLs) are the neurotoxic forms of amyloid-beta. ADDLs retard LTP, and they specifically target synapses. LTP is restored by vaccinations against ADDLs.

So what causes ADDL formation? Unfortunately, we don't know. Beta-amyloid may turn out to be a "cause" of Alzheimer's disease, but in turn, there must be a reason why the body loses the ability to keep beta-amyloid in check.

Those scientists won't be too popular today.

[GrpA]

After last night's soccer loss to Australia 3:1, it seems that most Japanese just want to forget...

GrpA.

Heh, But seriously, great research. Good to hear.

Bio-informatics

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

There are some nify algorithms for searching DNA sequences, and unspeakable data loads from some experiments (not quite as bad as high energy physics but severe).

There's lots of room for an IT person to contribute to biotech.

Folding@Home

[nacturation]

Rather than waiting for ET to call or look for prime numbers, donate your spare CPU cycles to running the Folding@Home client. Its goal is to find out why proteins (mis)fold and how that affects things like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Cancer, Huntington's, and related diseases. Damn, would it be cool to have it be my computer that identified an alien signal... but since a close relative has been diagnosed with Parkinson's I'd much rather do something that's more immediately beneficial.

It'd be interesting to hear if/how the Folding@Home project has helped out groups like this.

Re:Folding@Home

[Breakfast Pants]

Aliens already have the folding problem solved.

definitely no cure

[r00t]

Just forget about it.

Alzheimer's disaster looming

[grisken]

"Alzheimer's disease will overwhelm the nation's Medicare system in less than 25 years unless scientists find a way to prevent or cure it." [Tulsaworld.com] The article also states that more than a third of current Medicare expenditures are related to Alzheimer's and that figure will grow quickly as the U.S. population ages. Now if those figures are true its about time they (the men in white coats) found a cure for this disease. It is also remarkably (as well as suspiciously) timely. Guess they knew this was coming

Re:Aluminum...

[alchemist68]

I hope this and other stuff like this works before I get my onset... as a kid I had a bad habit of chewing aluminum can tabs, and I'm sure significan quantities broke off over the years...

ALUMINUM DOES NOT CAUSE ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE. This is a fallacy due to a Biologist not knowing how to operate an electron microscope. At that time, the "Aluminum" in Alheimer's patients' brains was the result of the biologist having the electron intensity turned-up too high, and instead of detecting just brain tissue, the biologist detected the Aluminum support holding the brain tissue.

So, the moral of the story is: KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING IN THE LABORATORY AND HAVE ACCURATE AND PRECISE DATA ANALYSIS WITH MEANINGFUL REPLICATION OF EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS BEFORE PUBLISHING IN JOURNALS!!!

It's been more than 10 years and the public still thinks that using products with "Aluminum", i.e. soda cans, anti-perspirant, etc... will cause/contribute to Alzheimer's disease. Wrong Wrong Wrong!!!

But are extracellular plaques the probelm??

[kim69]

First off it was obvious from the Elan trials that suddenly making a protein abundant in plaques in the brain (amyloid beta) into an antigen would lead to inflammation.... what were they thinking!

Immunotherapy has been successfully used in multiple mouse models of AD, including peripheral active and passive immuunisation. But here is the question: Is removing extracellular amyloid plaques in human AD going to cure the disease?? The probable answer is no, more and more researchers are showing that plaques are an end point - a protective state of amyloid that traps free floating "harmfull" amyloid into a dense core where it cant do any harm.

The harmfull effects of amyloid are being shown to be mediated by the soluble and oligomeric species - that is a single amyloid peptide or a bunch stuck together, usually with a mass of less than 100kda. So far we dont know if immunotherapy in humans will affect these harmful "amyloids" or not. The post mortem results from the Elan trials were pesimestic at best - patients who recieved the injections had reduced amyloid plaque burden, but cognitively, at best (and this is from the company line) did not cognitively deteriate as fast as without the antibodies.

Either way I'll put my money on a nice BACE inhibitor. Forget about the gamma-secretase ones, thats one complex you really dont want to be messing with!

Re:Alzheimers Prevention

[blank89]

A cure wouldn't necessarily have to reverse the Alzheimers process, just halt it (rather than slowing it down). It's true that even then for the cure to be effective the disease would have to be caught in time. What is really needed, even with the drugs that slow down the decaying effect, is a better diagnosis plan.

Re:Aluminum...

[Emnar]

Please cite a reference, since Google doesn't back you up.

I'm not sure about the GP's story, but here are two web references:

National Institute of Health:

Epidemiological studies attempting to link AD with exposures in drinking water have been inconclusive and contradictory. Thus, the significance of increased aluminum intake with regard to onset of AD has not been determined.

Alzheimer's Society (UK):

The overwhelming medical and scientific opinion is that the findings outlined above do not convincingly demonstrate a causal relationship between aluminium and Alzheimer's disease, and that no useful medical or public health recommendations can be made, at least at present.

It appears the consensus from reputable sites is that we don't know, and there's no consistent correlation that's shown up in studies so far.

Re:Alzheimers Prevention

[Chode2235]

All that they really need to do is prevent its onset by about 10-15 years. If they could do this it would essentially eliminate the disease, as it arrives very late in life. They don't really need an outright cure, but some way to slow it down to the point where we will likely be dead from other things before we really have to worry about Alzheimers.

There was a great documentary on PBS called "The Forgetting," which went into this, I highly recommend it. http://www.pbs.org/theforgetting/coping/planning.h tml

No major side effects

[GmAz]

What about the minor ones. I am sorry, but violent vomiting, diaherrea, abdominal cramping, bleeding from somewhere, migraines, and all that other stuff considered minor side effects aren't worth it. Live in pain and agony or live with Alzheimers. Plus the vaccine only helps a little. Its a great start, but lets stop it 100%.