An anticoagulant drug could slow down the symptoms of Alzheimer's: this is the discovery that comes from a group of Spanish scientists.
Don't store avocado like this: it's dangerousAn anticoagulant drug could slow down the symptoms of Alzheimer's: this is the discovery that comes from a group of Spanish scientists, who have shown that after a year of treatment with anticoagulants there is no memory loss.
They are researchers from the National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) who, in collaboration with Rockefeller University in New York, in a study have opened a new path in the prevention of this neurodegenerative disease with the use of oral anticoagulants.
"It opens a door to attacking Alzheimer's in a different way than we have experienced so far," says cardiologist Valentín Fuster, also CEO of the CNIC.
The scientific community has always emphasized the role of two proteins in Alzheimer's: the beta amyloid, which accumulates between neurons, and tau, which forms "tangles" in the brain. However, the scholar recalls that when the German psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer published the first case, in 1906, he defined the disease as "vascular, of the arteries that give blood to the brain", but this would have been forgotten.
For Fuster, it's time to go back to the origins of the investigation. This is why the CNIC team used it dabigatran, an oral drug that causes less unwanted bleeding than other classic anticoagulants. In the experiments, 12-month treatment of dabigatran reduced brain inflammation by 30% and by up to 50% of the more toxic forms of beta amyloid. One of the hypotheses is that the anticoagulant is able to improve cerebral circulation avoiding the microthrombi that hinder the arrival of oxygen and nutrients in the brains of Alzheimer's patients.
“Neurodegenerative diseases are deeply linked to the pathology of the cerebral vessels. Studying the brain-heart nexus in neurodegenerative diseases is the challenge of the next decade, ”says Fuster.
However, scientists are on their feet, since - Alzheimer's is a multifactorial disease and those affected can live 15 or 20 years without symptoms - by the time those memory deficits appear it may already be too late.
Yet, they are keen to point out, “the work is based on a previously known fact, namely the existence of common risk factors for cardiovascular disease and neurodegenerative diseases, such as vascular dementia or Alzheimer's disease. It has been suggested that if there are common risk factors, there may be common therapies ”.
Experts, in any case, ask for caution: they are convinced that knowing more deeply this vascular facet of Alzheimer's disease, a very complex disease with many actors who intervene for a long time, will allow new risk diagnoses, more accurate and possible prevention. treatments that slow down its progression. Work is currently underway on a non-invasive biomarker (an element that makes it possible to detect this poor vascular state of the brain in a blood test, for example), but there is still a long way to go.
Read also:
- Brain, neurons are formed even at the age of 90. New hopes against Alzheimer's
- Alzheimer Caffè: a special place where sick people meet to fight loneliness and rediscover a smile
- This blood test can diagnose Alzheimer's 16 years before symptoms appear
Germana Carillo
