[ExI] Jaw-dropping CWRU Alzheimer's breakthrough?

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 10:20 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
> I just stumbled across a paper that shows John was onto the beneficial
> effects of curcumin at least three years ago:
>
> http://accelerating.org/articles/curcumin.html
>
> He even mentions the possible benefits to AD patients in that article.
>
> Note that the Salk Institute created J147 as a chemical one-off of curcumin
> extract, and bexarotene is very similar to Salk's J147, and UCLA's custom
> molecule CLR01:

### This is interesting - curcumin is believed to be a mitochondrial
uncoupler (its antioxidant effect is just a side effect of this
mechanism). If bexarotene is also an uncoupler, this would explain its
efficacy against cancer cells which are generally susceptible to
uncoupling. There are some theoretical reasons to believe that
uncouplers may have beneficial effects on certain mitochondrial
diseases like AD or PD, as long as the doses are carefully controlled.
A drug that fixes mitochondrial dysfunction in AD is likely to
dissipate amyloid as a side effect.

So, maybe bexarotene could be useful in AD - but, as I mentioned
before, the mouse study is only the flimsiest sliver of evidence.
Definitely not worth spending 1200$ a month just in case it works a
little bit.

Rafal