Scientists Find New Target For Alzhiemer's

GarryFre writes "Neurological researchers at Rush University Medical Center have found a new therapeutic target that can potentially lead to a new way to prevent the progression of Alzheimer's disease. The target called neutral sphingomyelinase (N-SMase) is a protein which, when activated, can cause a chain of reactions in the cell leading to neuronal death and memory loss. Already a substance has been found that shows some promise in halting the progression of the disease."

Comments

Scary, scary illness

[Thanshin]

I admit being truly scared of alzheimer's.

It may be completely irrational, but cancer looks much less scary in comparison.

Re:Scary, scary illness

[Defenestrar]

Never known anyone with the disease have you?

Re:Scary, scary illness

[Rifter13]

In the end, all you truly have, is your mind. Who you are, who you were, and who you will be, is all in your mind. Cancer kills the body... Alzhiemer's kills who you are, and who you could be, destroying your memory of who you were...

I agree, other diseases, such as cancer do not put as much fear into me, as much as Alzhiemer's.

Re:Scary, scary illness

[mcgrew]

It may be completely irrational, but cancer looks much less scary in comparison.

They're both horrible diseases. Cancer is physically torturous, alzheimer's mentally torturous. Both are hell on the people who love the afflicted.

There are no good ways to die, but those two diseases have to be among the worst ways.

Re:Scary, scary illness

[$RANDOMLUSER]

In the end, all you truly have, is your mind.

I think, therefore I ... mmmmm pancakes

Re:Scary, scary illness

[Anonymous Coward]

Alzhiemer's kills who you are, and who you could be, destroying your memory of who you were

My Grandmother passed away this past December but had Alzheimer's for many years, progressively getting worse over time. In addition to what you list, I'd like to add that it has a large impact on those that care about the person. As my Grandmother's Alzheimer's state worsened, my mother and uncle (her only surviving children) became very frustrated in trying to care for her. Caring for someone that doesn't even know you is rough. Trying to hold a conversation, only to repeat it, knowing that it won't be remembered, is frustrating. You essentially care for the body of someone who "died" already.

My family, probably like many others, has plenty of medical conditions to worry about. Alzheimer's is the one I fear above the others, not so much for what it will do to me, but for what it will do to those I love.

Mij

Re:Scary, scary illness

[smellsofbikes]

In addition to trying to deal with someone who doesn't remember you, there can be major inter-family problem because at least some Alzheimers patients can no longer tell what happened from what they think happened, so you run into situations where the person says "why doesn't my son ever come visit me?" when the son in question is sitting in the room, and other family members, not realizing that the person is flat-out wrong, start resenting one another based on the testimony of, well, a crazy person.

And then the patient starts saying the nursing staff is abusive, and that the doctor hurts her when he checks her out -- and who do you believe? because while you know your grandmother is now basically totally unreliable, you also know that the staff knows that too and if they *were* abusive, who would know? and so you run into situations where some family members are trying to keep the patient happy and others are saying the patient needs to be moved to another facility, and others are so upset about the whole situation that they've stopped even visiting...

When my grandmother finally died, the sense of relief was palpable, and several years later, most all her relatives are friendly to one another again, and that was with a good nursing home, everyone living locally and visiting every week, and all of us talking regularly about the problems with each other to try to keep exactly this from happening.

Hope for Pratchett?

[Sparkycat]

It seems like Alzheimer's research is progressing surprisingly rapidly. I wonder if treatments will come soon enough to save the minds of people already in the early stages? Terry Pratchett in particular springs to mind.

Re:Hope for Pratchett?

[Defenestrar]

Pratchett has early onset which tends to be faster paced.

Re:Hope for Pratchett?

[MightyMartian]

Well, if Ron Paul has his way, the rich, and maybe, if they're feeling generous that day, they'll pick a few poor people suffering from the disease. You know, a Libertarian paradise.

Re:Hope for Pratchett?

[jimicus]

I think it's fair to say Alzheimer's research is getting a lot more press than it was getting even three years ago - before Sir Pterry made his announcement. He's done an enormous amount to bring Alzheimer's into the public eye, whereas previously it was the sort of thing people talked about in hushed tones when discussing the fate of an elderly relative, frequently not even daring to say "Alzheimer".

That alone has probably brought in more money for Alzheimer's research than anything else. Frankly, it's high time too. It's a cruel, cruel condition that I wouldn't wish on anyone. Not only does the sufferer slowly lose their mind, but their relatives get a ringside seat watching it happen in a sort of morbid horror show, unable to do a great deal but see the person they love die while their body keeps going.

Re:I hope

[Defenestrar]

The type of Alzheimer's they talk about here is caused by ß-amyloidosis which is a mis folded protein disease (prion - like mad cow). What happens is that normal secondary protein structure is converted from an form to ß causing conformational changes in the protein's tertiary structure leading to insolubility (this insoluble protein is now called an amyloid). Supposedly the Rice researchers have found a way to prevent the ß-amyloid deposits from causing cell damage, however unless it's 100% efficient it won't be enough because misfolded proteins are "contagious" - that is they cause other normally folded protiens to convert to the insoluble misfolded amyloid which will proceed with exponential growth. Eventually you'll have every one of those proteins in the ß configuration.

Nice article

[mesri]

Pretty good article (the original in J. Neurosci). Alzheimer's has long been believed to be caused by aggregates of amyloid-beta protein, but exactly how they kill neurons (and in what stage of aggregation) has been pretty controversial. They showed a pathway from the amyloid-beta through this N-SMase to neuron death in small assemblies _and_ in larger aggregates, which should make everybody happy (or maybe no one). The important caveat though is that this was in vitro testing, and everything to do with studying Alzheimer's has been confounded by the subtle differences between in vivo and in vitro.

Re:So messed up

[Digicrat]

90-95% of the time that's true, but alzheimer's isn't always just an old timers disease. It's called early-onset Alzeimer's disease

No hope for Pratchett!

[Frans Faase]

I think it is not progressing surprisingly rapidly. Because I do have a partner with Early-Onset Alzheimer's Disease, I follow the scientic news announcements, and I have to say that this particular news announcement is like many that are made almost every month. This is only talking about a potential target. It does not even talk about a possible medicine. If a medicine is found, it usually takes at least five year before it could become available for the general public. Even if this is a valid target, it could still take several years before finding a medicine that only works on the target. So, it could still take ten years before a medicine based on this target could become available.

Alzheimer's Disease is a progressive and fatal disease with an life expectancy of about 10 years after diagnoses. So, based on this facts I would conclude that this is no hope for Pratchett!

It is true that Alzheimer's Disease is now where cancer used to be fifty years ago. What many people don't know is that the total costs for Alzheimer's Disease, in the Western world, are already larger than the total costs for cancer, and are expected to rise rapidly in face of demographic developments, especially in Europe.

Re:Scary, scary illness FWIW

[HiThere]

My father died of complications of Altzheimers.

It was hell on my mother for years, but *he* seemed to enjoy it.

(The complication was that a year or two after he had been "hospitalized" and gotten to the point where they had to strap him into the bed, one night he stood up in bed and fell out of it, landing on his head and breaking his neck.)

Altzheimers is hard on those close to the patient, not so much on the patient. But this *does* depend on the form. Some people stay aware that they are losing their minds. My father never seemed to notice. I still remember him trying to seduce my wife while both my mother and I were in the room, he was confined to a bed. He was stroking her arm and telling her he didn't have any family...

Re:I hope

[geekoid]

One would presume it would be regular medication, not a cure. This is just treatment for a symptom; which is a good thing.