Hypertension Drugs, Beneficial Against Alzheimer's Disease

Filed in archive Alzheimer's Disease , Studies , Treatment on October 28, 2007

Commonly prescribed hypertension drugs have been found to have the potential in prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease and cognitive deterioration in a study conducted by a team at Mount Sinai Hospital.




Dr. Giulio Maria Pasinetti of Mount Sinai have been directing in the past two years the screening more than 1,500 drugs that are already commercially available for treatment of other disorders in order to determine their potential value in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and cognitive impairment.

Based on the outcomes from initial drug screening, Dr. Pasinetti and his collaborators identified 7out of 55 candidate drugs commonly prescribed for the treatment of hypertension, which are capable of significantly preventing beta-amyloid production, which is a major mechanism recently identified as playing a key role in Alzheimer's disease pathogenesis, particularly in respect to promotion of memory loss and dementia.

According to Dr. Pasinetti:

"If we can deliver certain anti-hypertensive drugs to patients at high risk to develop Alzheimer's disease, at doses that do not affect blood pressure, these drugs could be made available for all members of the geriatric population identified as being at high risk for developing Alzheimer's disease."

The identified anti-hypertensive drugs have been found to have anti- beta-amyloid production activities in the brain of Alzheimer's disease mice.

Definitely, interesting and worth looking forward to. In this particular study, the anti-hypertensive drug identified is Valsartan.

Find more details from Science Daily.