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Read moreTitle: Halting Alzheimer’s
Author: Future Agenda | https://www.futureagenda.org
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https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/halting-alzheimers/
Stopping mental degradation from Alzheimer’s makes quality ageing more possible by improving cognition and slowing the rate of decline.
In our discussions, one of the big bets for the future in the health arena that many are focused on is being able to halt the rise of Alzheimer’s disease. This disease is a physical condition affecting the brain and is the most common cause of dementia. Today, worldwide, 35 million people have Alzheimer’s and, as the ageing demographic shift has greater impact, this is projected to rise to 115 million by 2050.
There is currently no cure for Alzheimer’s disease. However, drug treatments are available that can alleviate the symptoms and even slow down the disease’s progression in some patients. Although the exact causes of the disease are still being investigated, people with Alzheimer’s are known to have a shortage of the chemical acetylcholine in their brains. Drugs available to people in the moderate stages of dementia, such as Aricept, Exelon and Reminyl, work by maintaining existing supplies of acetylcholine, the chemical compound which activates muscles. Another drug, the only one that is suitable for use in people in the middle to later stages of dementia, is called Ebixa and works in a different way − it prevents the excess entry of calcium ions into brain cells. Excess calcium in the brain cells damages them and prevents them from receiving messages from other brain cells. These drugs are not a cure for Alzheimer’s, as they have no effect on the underlying degenerative process of the disease, but they can stabilize some of the symptoms for a limited period of time.
Finding a way forward for Alzheimer’s is a burning issue, especially in the US where there are currently 5.5 million patients and the direct and indirect costs of the disease amount to over $100 billion annually. In addition, the disease is well recognized as placing heavy economic and social burdens on caregivers. By 2050, with more people living longer and so a greater percentage of the population susceptible to the disease, the US is forecast to have 14 million people with Alzheimer’s and the burden on the healthcare system could be as high as $500 billion.
While finding a cure for Alzheimer’s may take longer than our 2020 horizon, a capability of stopping degradation is highly probable. In fact, over the past few years, there have been some major developments which give hope. Key to many of these is the use of adult stem cells as a base for developing new healthy brain cells. As was highlighted during the Future Agenda programme, ‘several treatments in development are designed either to improve cognition or to slow the rate of decline’ and some of the most promising avenues of research being undertaken at universities including Berkeley focus on reducing ‘amyloid beta’ levels.
Read moreFrom
The World In 2020