The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved an Alzheimer’s drug for the first time in 20 years. It concerns Aducanumab from the pharmaceutical company Biogen. The FDA considers it likely that patients will benefit, but there are still uncertainties about the “important” new treatment for the disease that causes dementia.
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Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by an insidious onset and slowly progressive development of cognitive impairment. The symptoms are getting worse. There is currently no cure for Alzheimer’s. Someone with Alzheimer’s has difficulty with things like making plans, making decisions, and following a conversation. Memory impairments have often been present for some time.
“Some effectiveness”
Aducanumab is an antibody. Our immune system makes antibodies against bacteria and viruses. An antibody is a protein that sticks to cells that do not belong in the body. When an antibody sticks to something, our immune cells know that these cells are harmful. The immune cells then clean up the wrong cells.
Aducanumab sticks to the harmful Alzheimer’s protein ‘amyloid’. Amyloid is considered one of the causes of Alzheimer’s. By clearing the amyloid proteins in the brain, Alzheimer’s would progress more slowly. High-dose aducanumab, branded Aduhelm, for an extended period of time could have “some effectiveness” in treating Alzheimer’s, the results showed. The accumulation of certain proteins in cranial nerve cells, the cause of Alzheimer’s, can be reduced, according to the FDA.
Worldwide, approximately 30 million people suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, most of them over 65.
– Aduhelm would help against Alzheimer’s Photo: AP
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