New drug hopes for Alzheimer's

Published on Monday 2 February 2009 21:07

HOPES were raised that diabetes drugs could be developed as treatments for Alzheimer's disease after scientists demonstrated the beneficial effect of insulin on the brain.

A US-led team found the hormone, released by the pancreas to help control levels of sugar in the blood, protected memory-forming parts of the brain.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that insulin may slow or prevent the memory loss caused by toxic proteins that attack the brains of Alzheimer's sufferers.

It boosts theories the disease – characterised by progressively catastrophic dementia – could be due to a type of brain diabetes. People with diabetes either fail to produce insulin, do not produce enough or fail to use what they do produce effectively.

The findings were welcomed by campaigners in the UK.