Today more than five million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, and experts say that number is poised to skyrocket in coming years. In 2011, the first Baby Boomers turned 65, which will lead to the number of senior citizens in the US doubling by 2050.
Alzheimer’s mostly affects the elderly, so scientists think that the number of people with the disorder will increase to 13 million or more in coming years. Treatment for the disease could spike to $1 trillion and consume a third of Medicare’s annual budget.
That is why scientists are so hard at work trying to find cures for the disease. They still do not fully understand what causes AD, but they do know that some factors do play a role, such as:
- Genetics
- Diet
- Lifestyle
- Cardiovascular health (affects blood flow to brain)
Researchers do know that the disease causes build up of two proteins in the brain that interferes with how brain cells communicate with each other. This eventually causes the immune system to attack the brain tissue. This leads to inflammation and damage to neurons, which shrinks the brain in dramatic ways.
There currently are five AD drugs that have been approved by FDA, but these only provide mild improvements to memory function. A few drug companies have found drugs that do fight the growth of the problem proteins in the brain and they were successfully tested on mice. But they have failed in human trials.
Researchers at Biogen, a biotechnology company, have developed a new drug that substantially cut down on brain plaques in a human trial. That company recently started the trial in a much larger group, and scientists there are crossing their fingers that this will be a breakthrough. Hopefully, progress will continue in Alzheimer’s research and we will in the coming decades have found a cure for this disease.
