Heart Drugs may Reduce Alzheimer's Disease

Ivanhoe Newswire
Thursday, December 7, 2006; 12:00 AM

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Drugs that lower your blood pressure may also help treat Alzheimer's disease.

Recently scientists have been looking into drugs already available for other conditions to see if they can also treat Alzheimer's disease. Now researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York say medications for high blood pressure may help.

The study tested commonly prescribed drugs in the brain cells of animals predisposed to develop Alzheimer's disease and then monitored them for abnormally processed beta-amyloid -- a feature critical in the development of Alzheimer's disease, especially cognitive deterioration.

Results reveal of the several hundred drugs that looked promising in preventing beta-amyloid build-up, seven of them are commonly prescribed to treat high blood pressure. Most promising was the anti-hypertensive drug propranolol HCl (Inderal).

Researchers say it may also be possible to find a concentration of the drug that blocks the build-up of beta-amyloid without affecting blood pressure.

"If we can give this drug at concentrations that do not affect blood pressure, this drug could be made available for all members of the geriatric population identified as being at high risk for developing Alzheimer's disease," reports lead researcher Giulio M. Pasinetti, M.D., Ph.D., Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

But Dr. Pasinetti cautions the drug is still highly experimental for treating Alzheimer's disease, and studies have yet to be done in humans.

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SOURCE: American College of Neuropsychopharmacology Annual Meeting in Hollywood, Fla., Dec. 3-7, 2006