Detection? Prophylaxis? Or Treatment?
There continue to be, from time to time, reports of new methods or procedures that promise to accurately detect Alzheimer's dementia before gross symptoms conventionally reveal the disease. Well and good; except....
Except for the fact that presently, such a diagnosis can offer no useful consequent therapy. Presently, there is very little that can be done to slow or minimize the onset of Alzheimer's disease. Simply (tragically), an Alzheimer's diagnosis is lethal. No one, ever, successfully stops the disease's lethal progression. Yes, Aricept, one of the very few drugs approved as an Alzheimer's therapy, can, for a time, slow the disease's progression. Nonetheless, at some point (sooner than desired) the disease's dementia progresses severely. A morbid death always ensues.
(I know this personally. My father, an accomplished and successful public accountant, had early-stage Alzheimer's; was admitted as a patient in the clinical trial that eventually allowed the approval of Aricept. Whether he was in the control arm of the study, taking a disguised starch pill, or Aricept itself, was never known. Didn't matter. He declined rapidly; was committed to an Alzheimer's care center, where many month later he died.)
I tell, once again, that probably blarcamesine's greatest therapeutic utility will be not just to treat existing Alzheimer's cases (very successfully) but, in fact, to prevent the disease's onset; used as an Alzheimer's prophylactic.
Interestingly, the recent Anavex patent for blarcamesine (Anavex 2-73) patented a dosing regimen where the drug would be given to potential Alzheimer's patients (meaning anyone and everyone in their forties or fifties), for prophylactic, preventative purposes. But it was noted that this proposed (and now protected) dosing regimen would be intermittent. The drug would be taken for short periods of time, say, for several days; followed by an equal or longer no-doses period. This is a new on/off dosing schedule. Anavex must believe, have evidence, that this will be successful.
It makes sense, because when blarcamesine binds, as a ligand, to the sigma-1 receptor protein, it can then remain attached for some time, modulating and promoting the many propitious things that happen when that protein is properly activated. No apparent need for continuous, uninterrupted dosing. Blarcamesine pills on, say, Mondays and Tuesdays of every week may be fully prophylactic.
Instead of new early Alzheimer's detection protocols or methods, as good as those will be (very much invited), the biggest Alzheimer's story, when it can appear, will be news that intermittent dosing with blarcamesine soundly prevents the onset of the disease.
The other, earlier Alzheimer's news will be the clinical realization that blarcamesine can actually reverse and stop the progression of Alzheimer's.
No other drug, or pharmaceutical company, will be able to exhibit these two profound Alzheimer's therapies: a) effective prophylaxis (prevention) of the disease, for people who don't yet have it, and b) effective treatment for those who do.
A new era in neurological medicine.
AI
