It is fairly well established that diabetes and high blood sugar are serious risk factors for Alzheimers (see Alzheimer’s Linked To Sugar & Diabetes and also: Diabetes and Alzheimer’s linked, Alzheimer’s disease
and diabetes, and research review: Type 2 Diabetes as a Risk Factor for Alzheimer’s Disease: The Confounders, Interactions, and Neuropathology Associated With This Relationship)
So it would seem to be great news that the use of an established drug for treating human diabetes might also directly treat Alzheimer’s or at least the symptoms thereof in mice models. However this snarky, but all-too-true, comment from Hacker News summarizes the situation:
This would be great news if we [had] not cured mice many times before of Alzheimer’s. Unfortunatly all the drugs that have worked in mice failed when tested in humans.
Of course, this might be the magic time. Since the drug is already approved for human use, we’ll find out much sooner whether it works for Alzheimer’s. Here are four media articles about the work (all with similar titles):
A Diabetes Drug Has ‘Significantly Reversed Memory Loss’ in Mice With Alzheimer’s
Diabetes drug ‘significantly reverses memory loss’ in mice with Alzheimer’s
Diabetes drug ‘significantly reverses memory loss’ in mice with Alzheimer’s
Diabetes drug “significantly reverses memory loss” in mice with Alzheimer’s
And here is the original research article:
Neuroprotective effects of a triple GLP-1/GIP/glucagon receptor agonist in the APP/PS1 transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease
The three links in the first paragraph have been added to Risk Factors. The links regarding the diabetes drug have been added to Treatment > Drugs.
