OT - Alzheimers
Alzheimer's breakthrough 'excites' scientists
Leigh Dayton, Science writer
30sep04
SCIENTISTS may have identified a trigger and a treatment for the mental ravages of Alzheimer's disease after a series of remarkable experiments by Australian and US researchers.
Until now, no external cause of the frightening brain disorder has been found, and existing therapies only slow the progression to dementia and death.
"It's a very exciting finding," admitted team leader Ralph Martins, a molecular biologist with Edith Cowan University and the Sir James McCusker Alzheimer's Disease Research Unit at Hollywood Private Hospital in Perth.
University of Melbourne Alzheimer's expert Colin Masters agreed. "This could be a major finding with important implications," he commented.
Earlier this month, Alzheimer's Australia estimated that the disease affected 162,300 people and at least 1million relatives and carers. By 2020, Alzheimer's will hit almost 300,000 Australians.
Women are more at risk of the disease, known to run in families.
Today at the ComBio 2004 meeting in Perth, Professor Martins and his colleagues will present new findings showing that if a normal age-related hormonal process "overshoots", it causes the build-up of brain-clogging substances called amyloid-beta proteins.
These proteins are known to kill brain cells and cause dementia.
However, Professor Martins said yesterday that "by chance" two existing drugs - one used to treat prostate cancer and another that boosts female fertility - could slow or even halt the destruction because they interfere with the protein-boosting process.
Two years ago, scientists with North Carolina-based Voyager Pharmaceuticals found some evidence that elevated levels of a hormone called gonadotropin were linked with dementia.
Excited by the result, Professor Martins and colleagues at the Research Unit, Edith Cowan and the University of Western Australia studied 1000 Perth women over the age of 70, not taking hormone replacement therapy. Surprisingly, they found no link between mental decline and the women's varying levels of the sex hormone oestrogen.
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