Newly discovered Alzheimer's drug reverses ageing process

Medical scientist are striving hard to discover the causes and treatments of many of vicious diseases, associated with young as well as old age.

According to Tech Times, researchers of Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California have succeeded in development of an experimental medication. The drug has the ability to slow down the ageing process, thus minimizing the effects of Alzheimer's disease.

Antonio Currais and his fellow researchers at the institute's Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory conducted a research, which was featured in the journal Aging. In that study, they examined the effect of a candidate drug known as J147 on major risk factors of Alzheimer's disease. Salk researches experimented J147 on a model mouse and revealed that the drug candidate helped enhance the blood flow in its vessels as well as boost their cognition and memory.

"Initially, the impetus was to test this drug in a novel animal model that was more similar to 99 percent of Alzheimer's cases," Currais said. "We did not predict we'd see this sort of anti-ageing effect, but J147 made old mice look like they were young, based upon a number of physiological parameters."

According to the US National Institutes of Health, Alzheimer's disease is a progressive brain disorder which is also the most common cause of dementia in older adults.

"While most drugs developed in the past 20 years target the amyloid plaque deposits in the brain (which are a hallmark of the disease), none has proven effective in the clinic," said senior author David Schubert, a professor at Salk Institute, as mentioned in The Economic Times.

Instead of aiming at amyloid, researches decided to zero in on the major hazardous aspect for the disease which is old age. They synthesized J147 by utilizing cell-based screens against old-age associated brain toxicities.

Researchers previously found that in mice with an inherited form of Alzheimer's, J147 could prevent and even reverse memory loss and Alzheimer's pathology.

Schubert said that inherited form of the disease only comprises only about 1 per cent of all Alzheimer's cases. In rest of the victims, old age is a major factor.

The researchers measured the expression of all genes in the brain using a comprehensive set of assays as well as over 500 small molecules involved with metabolism in the brains and blood of three groups of the rapidly ageing mice.

The result was remarkable as reported by TV Newsroom, the third group fed with J147 was very similar to those of the young mice. They also seemed to prevent blood leakage from blood vessels in the brain, had an increase in energy metabolism, reduced inflammation and reduced oxidized fatty acid levels.

"If proven safe and effective for Alzheimer's, the apparent anti-aging effect of J147 would be a welcome benefit", adds Schubert.

The Salk researchers aim to move their study by conducting experiments on humans in 2016.