Skin Cancer Drug Reverses Alzheimer's Symptoms In Mice

An anonymous reader writes "A skin cancer drug may rapidly reverse pathological, cognitive and memory deterioration associated with Alzheimer's disease, according to new research published on Thursday. Bexarotene, a drug that is currently used to combat T cell lymphoma, appeared to reverse plaque buildup and improve memory in the brains of mice with Alzheimer's disease by reducing levels of beta-amyloid plaques in the brain that cause mental deficits in Alzheimer's disease."

Repurposing drugs

[kodiaktau]

This is one of those instances where I wonder if the drug repurposing is good or bad. The side effects [nih.gov] seem to be typical, but as the article points out:

Experts said that the results were promising, but noted that in the past successful drugs in mice often failed to work in people.

So what I am trying to figure out is this an instance where Pfizer or someone else is backing the study. It looks like Easi [cleveland.com] isn't backing this but is someone else backing the work trying to keep a drug repurposed.

As I think about this I also wonder what happens to the plaque that is removed...so is it reabsorbed into the body?

Regardless, I think this is definately something useful and helpful if the human studies pan out.

Re:Repurposing drugs

[Anonymous Coward]

I was also interested in what happens to the plaque. also ive read that there is evidence that the evolutionary purpose of the plaques may be to bind to toxins such as heavy metals (or aluminium). if the tangles of plaque can be broken up what happens to the toxins they bind? if the bodies defense mechanism in this case is more harmful than the original problem perhaps this can be beneficial if used with digression.

Re:Toxilogical Info

[tibit]

Considering that it's a cancer drug, I say: meh, it's not bad at all. Chemo usually makes you toxic enough that others are not allowed to touch you for crying out loud, you have to wear warning tags! You're taking chemo at levels that produce acute toxicity: that's normal dosage, duh. This drug is a walk in the park, and given how bad Alzheimer's is, I'd take it without blinking an eye if it worked on humans and I was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

Re:Toxilogical Info

[Guppy]

Ingestion: may cause effects similar to hypervitaminosis A

Because it binds to retinoid receptors. The news summaries circulating are a little mis-leading. It's not exactly a "skin cancer" per say, but rather skin manifestations of certain kinds of leukemia. The drug treats certain types of leukemia by forcing the cells to complete differentiation.

Check out the CNN Article on this

[mykepredko]

Lots of outlets are publishing this, one of the more interesting ones was CNN's: http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/09/health/us-cancer-drug-alzheimers/index.html?hpt=he_c2 [cnn.com]

Check out the quote: "We've fixed Alzheimer's in mice lots of times, so we need to move forward expeditiously but cautiously."

So, would it be safe to say that Alzheimer's in mice is different from that in humans (on some level) so you might want to wait a bit before overdosing on Skin Cancer meds?

myke

painful advances

[ffflala]

My father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's three years ago. It is simply brutal to see what this disease does to the people you love. But given the inevitable outcome of Alzheimer's, I'll grasp at any straw I can find if it presents some remote hope of a different outcome. This kind of perspective can't help but make one feel as if you're vulnerable to hucksters. There have been similar claims about more dubious Alzheimer's treatments, such as coconut oil, but when it comes down to it my approach is "Will it kill him or hurt him? If not, then let's try it, what have we got to lose."

The human testing and approval process for treating Alzheimer's with bexarotene will simply take too long to be of any benefit to him. I want to get a physician to approve this medication for the off-label use for my father, so we can try it on him.

I hope it is not reckless nor irresponsible to see if I can use my father as a sort of non-controlled subject for this study. But it seems that I have the choice between (1) risking a negative, possibly fatal or crippling, reaction for a remote chance at reversing a fatal, painful disease, or (2) waiting responsibly for the gears of formal human medical approval turn, test, find that this works, and approve prescribing it for patients. What kind of a choice is that?

Re:Check out the CNN Article on this

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes it's not so much that the drugs that alleviate AD in mice don't do that in humans also, but that they have nasty side effects in humans that aren't tolerable.

IIRC, there was a process not too long ago that reversed dementia in mice, and also in field trials in humans, but led to significant brain hemorrhaging as well during the trials, so it was stopped immediately and eventually shelved.

Hopefully this drug won't have the same side effect problems, but I think it's part of the difficulty in moving from rodent models to humans.

Re:Toxilogical Info

[silverspell]

Lesson learned, for sure.

Out of curiosity, what was the lesson?

(I'm not being a wiseass BTW. Just wondering how that experience has changed your behavior since then -- mainly, how you've protected yourself from having the same thing happen again, while still doing first-rate work in an efficient manner.)

Tau protein

[Frans Faase]

Just a week ago, the Slashdot item Alzheimer's Transmission Pathway Discovered [slashdot.org] reported that Alzheimer was caused by the spread of the tau protein gone wrong. How is this to be interpretted in the view of the above new item?