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

[spike]

-----Original Message-----
From: Rafal Smigrodzki [mailto:rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com] 
Subject: Re: [ExI] Jaw-dropping CWRU Alzheimer's breakthrough?

On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 3:02 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
> Of course we would not encourage anyone to devour the stuff, oh dear 
> no, that would make it a medication or a dietary supplement, in which 
> case we would be so deeply buried in laws it would take a postcard a 
> month to get to us.  This would be for, you know, like, washing your hands and such.
>

### Absolutely no comments on this one, Spike :)

Rafal


Ja, I have not been posting everything I have been reading, but I will condense the message.  For the sake of generality, let me put bexarotene in with a class of chemicals I will call curcumins.  You may not be able to find that, but one of the UCLA researchers used that term, and I took it, for that class of diphenols with two unsaturated carbonyl groups.  The turmeric-derived curcuminoids are being studied for their impact on the mechanisms which sweep out beta amyloids in the brain.

Of the curcuminoids, bexarotene is a particularly low blood-brain barrier crosser, which makes it more favorable for a medication in which we do not want to worry about what we are doing to the brain while treating something else.  Most curcuminoids are better crossers, so the focus now is on which of these may have the same beneficial effects that bexarotene apparently has on genetically-induced mouse brains.

>From a strictly theoretical standpoint, bexarotene as an Alzheimer's treatment is looking like probably a bad idea, since it takes so much of the stuff to get just a little into the brain, and it is known to have bad side effects.  But it will likely lead to good ideas, such as using one of the chemical cousins in the curcumin class, which can be given at a far lower dose, extracted cheaply from existing spices long known to be safe, etc.

So the original bexarotene report really stirred the anthill.  Several research facilities flew into high gear, each picking their favorite curcuminoid and studying the hell out of it, with the hope that there is an enormous prize awaiting the first to find the best one.  Keep in mind that we all face huge risk of Alzheimers, and none of the current medications do anything, and that if you or any one of your family gets Alzheimer's, it can ruin the whole family because institutional care is verrry expensive, and home care is very time intensive.  Bexarotene probably isn't the answer, but it may point to an answer.

spike