Skin Cancer Drug reverses Alzheimers in mice!

This is an amazing discovery.  Having lost my Grandmother to this sad disease, this is a great

breakthrough.  With this discovery, there is know telling how many people they will be able

to help. Families will not have to go through the heartbreak of watching their loved ones fade

away in to their own minds.  Having watched my Grandmother slowly disappear  as the person

I knew, was the hardest thing that I have ever done.  One day you would see her and she would

know you, talk to you about everything she had done that day.  Then you would go see her a

couple days later, and she would not even know your name.  I hope that this discovery will

work on humans the same way as it did on the mice.  Because it would have been an amazing

find to have had when my Grandmother was still alive. We could have had her a little while

longer.




Mice -- and humans -- with Alzheimer's have high levels of a substance called amyloid beta in their brain. Pathology tests on the mice showed bexarotene lowered the levels of amyloid beta and raised the levels of apolipoprotein E, which helps keep amyloid beta levels low.
Landreth said he hopes to try the drug out in healthy humans within two months, to see if it has the same effect.
Those participating in the trial would be given the standard dose that cancer patients are usually given.
Researchers tested the memories of mice with Alzheimer's both before and after giving them bexarotene. For example, the Alzheimer's mice walked right into a cage where they'd previously been given a painful electrical shock, but after treatment with bexarotene, the mice remembered the shock and refused to enter the cage.
In another test, the scientists put tissue paper in a cage. Normal mice instinctively use tissues in their cage to make a nest, but mice with Alzheimer's can't figure out what to do with the tissues. After treatment with the drug, the Alzheimer's mice made a nest with the paper.
Carrillo said one of the major advantages of bexarotene is that it's already been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in humans, which means the researchers can move into human trials sooner than if it were a completely new drug.



http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/09/health/us-cancer-drug-alzheimers/index.html?hpt=he_c2