Study: 'Old' drug may slow Alzheimer's decline

ajc.com

By Jeremy Manier
Chicago Tribune

Chicago —- Hope is often scarce in research on Alzheimer's disease, but a study released Tuesday at a Chicago medical conference offered tentative hope for a new way of slowing elderly patients' mental decline.

The preliminary study of 321 Alzheimer's patients from Singapore and Britain found that an old drug, previously used for urinary tract infections and other ailments, reduced the patients' rate of mental loss by 81 percent, based on a standard measure of cognitive performance and memory.

The results require further confirmation, but whatever the outcome, some experts are intrigued by the drug's novel way of attacking the disease.

Scientists say the medication, which goes by the commercial name of "rember," may work by dissolving tangles of a protein that collects in the brain cells of Alzheimer's patients.

If true, the therapy could be the first to stave off an underlying cause of.....read more of

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