Alzheimer’s breakthrough gives real hope

When I first heard about a potential breakthrough in finding a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease last night, I was sceptical.

I’ve banged on about this in previous blogs, but in recent weeks it seems every day has brought new stories of potential treatments for Alzheimer’s or ways to stop it developing in the first place. From properties in blood pressure or cholesterol control drugs (promising), through tomatoes and tea (doubtful) to a helmet that bathes the user in infra-red light (downright odd) it seems anything and everything could be the key.

So many theories left me jaded and cynical; it seemed no-one really had any concrete clues as to what could treat the condition.

But this changed last night.

British scientists say a drug called rember can stop Alzheimer’s progressing by as much as 81%. There are hopes it could even stop the condition in its early stages, before symptoms appear.

Crucially, rember targets the ‘tangles’ in the brain of someone with Alzheimer's that destroy nerve cells and lead to a deterioration in memory and can bring the worst affected parts back to functional life. While not reversing the condition, it does seem to virtually halt its progress

By addressing the tangles, seemingly with success – although the trial was only on 321 people – it goes to the crux of the condition and genuinely seems to offer an effective treatment that could extend the functional life of people with Alzheimer's by years.

While my optimism is tempered by the facts that it could still be several years before the drug is ready to bring to market, and even then there is no guarantee it will be available on the NHS – remember NICE’s decision on Aricept [see Dementia: restricted access to drugs ] - it is nonetheless the most concrete evidence yet that finally the trauma of dementia could be on the way to being beaten.

Are you running the risk of dementia?

If newspaper reports from the past 7 days are to be believed, women who had low IQ as children, now have high cholesterol and blood pressure and regularly eat tofu are destined to be struck down with dementia.

Meanwhile, men over the age of 90 who eat plenty of tomatoes and fish are in great shape to avoid the condition.

Some of it we know already, such as the memory benefits provided by fish; others are new. But the constant reportage makes for information overload. Throw in recent genetic breakthroughs and you’d think we’re on the cusp of a genuine breakthrough in treating the disease.

The problem is, we’re constantly on the cusp – and waiting for a cure for Alzheimer’s is like waiting for a bus that’ll never arrive. Although I’d like to be proved wrong.

More potential causes will come and go over the next few weeks. We’ll continue to be told what is good and bad for us to eat – potentially scary if you’ve spent a lifetime eating the ‘wrong’ food – and never even known.

Take the latest culprit, tofu. A supposed ‘superfood’ - many healthy and committed vegetarians swear by it – yet now their being told it could cause dementia.

This theory may be debunked over time, while the search for other causes continues relentlessly.

There’s no doubt such findings are needed - but shouldn’t the boffins keep the results to themselves until they find a cure? Or at least make a genuine breakthrough?
By Robert Mair

Hope of deliverance

Yesterday was a good day for people like pensioner Margaret Coates.

She made headlines in March because she faced blindness after her local PCT refused to fund the drug treatment needed to combat her wet age-related macular degeneration.

Bromley PCT said it would only fund treatment for those with unusual or unique clinical factors, and Mrs Coates had neither.

But the kind of issues affecting the pensioner could be a thing of the past in England if the recommendations in Lord Ara Darzi’s review of the NHS are put into practice.

One of the key tenets of Lord Darzi’s review is to ‘personalise’ – that word again – services to make them fit for everyone’s needs, “includ[ing] those people traditionally less likely to seek help or who find themselves discriminated against in some way”.

In addition, Lord Darzi says the NHS should “guarantee patients access to the most clinically and cost effective drugs and treatments” where the clinician recommends them.

Reading between the lines, this should mean that older people such as Mrs Coates will be able to get the treatment they need.

There was more good news in Lord Darzi’s report. The commitment to preventative healthcare should help pensioners and people with learning disabilities to remain in their own homes for longer.

A focus on quality rather than targets is also welcome. Putting the emphasis on providing quality, individual care and improving standards harks back to the earlier days of the NHS and is long overdue.

But while Lord Darzi’s report on the future of the NHS makes for heartening reading, it is up to the government to deliver on it and as ever this is the potential sticking point; neither he nor the government has made any mention – that I can find – of how this will be paid for.

This is worrying. The NHS is underfunded and implementing the recommendations of the report will not be cheap.

Where the extra money will come from to make good on these commitments is a mystery to me and without a coherent strategy for funding it I can see Lord Darzi’s report falling flat. That would be a great opportunity missed and people like Mrs Coates will still not receive the treatment they need.