Alzheimer’s disease could be treated by a drug we’ve already used for decades, according to new research.
Researchers found a type of drug used induce labour in pregnant women also speeds up the system that clears waste from the brain, which is dysfunctional in people.
This is why some call Alzheimer’s, and other dementias, ‘dirty brain’ diseases, since when the disposal system slows down, toxic waste builds up in the brain, crowding and damaging healthy tissue.
These kinds of drugs, used to help deliver over a million pregnancies per year, can be taken as a pill, IV or applied as a topical.
‘This research shows that restoring cervical lymph vessel function can substantially rescue the slower removal of waste from the brain associated with age,’ Dr Kelley said.
‘Moreover, this was accomplished with a drug already being used clinically, offering a potential treatment strategy.’
The study, which was posted in the journal Nature Aging, looked at the complex series of tunnels and pumps that the brain uses to remove waste called the glymphatic system.
The system pumps fluid over the brain’s tissue, washing away and pumping out old cells and proteins that could gunk up and harm neurons. -Daily Mail .uk
