Brain-penetrating ACE inhibitors slow Alzheimer’s

	Tweet

Drugs usually used to treat High Blood Pressure and heart failure may also be helpful for Alzheimer’s patients, Japanese researchers report.

Certain angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors such as captopril and perindopril (brand-name Aceon), which are able to cross the blood-brain barrier, appear to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a report in the medical journal Neurology.

"Use of brain-penetrating ACE inhibitors might provide clinical benefits for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease patients with hypertension,” Dr. Takashi Ohrui from Tohoku University School of Medicine, told Reuters Health.

Ohrui and colleagues compared mental status scores for 162 Alzheimer’s patients before and after treatment with a brain-penetrating or non-brain-penetrating ACE inhibitor or a calcium-channel blocker.

After 1 year of treatment, the deterioration in mental performance was lowest in the group treated with brain-penetrating ACE inhibitors captopril or perindopril, the authors report, averaging a decline of 0.6 points.

The declines in mental status scores were considerably larger (4.6 points) in patients treated with non-brain-penetrating ACE inhibitors enalapril (e.g., Vasotec, Lexxel) or imidapril (Tanatril), and in those treated with calcium-channel blockers (average decline, 4.9 points).

“These results suggest that brain-penetrating ACE inhibitors might have a clinical benefit even in patients with limited activities of daily living,” the authors conclude.

“This study’s findings are provocative and exciting,” writes Dr. David S. Knopman from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, in a related commentary, “but readers must be skeptical.”

He cites a number of weaknesses in the study, and says the findings “must be replicated in carefully controlled, randomized, blinded studies.”

Ohrui added, “We plan to do experimental research using an animal model to study the effectiveness of brain-penetrating ACE inhibitors in Alzheimer’s disease.”

SOURCE: Neurology, October 2004.

RELATED STORIES:
Reduce Your Stroke Risk!   Massage device eyed in doctor’s death   Marijuana Use May Hurt Intellectual Skills in MS Patients   Newly discovered role for enzyme in neurodegenerative diseases   Simple blood test may detect Alzheimer’s: study   Eye Cell Implants Improve Motor Symptoms for Parkinson Patients   Computer-Assisted Counseling Might Help Prevent Major Birth Defects   UF Researchers Get $250,000 to study Cell-Based Epilepsy Treatment   Smoking Increase Risk of age-related macular degeneration   Women’s stroke symptoms may differ from men’s   New understanding of basic units of memory   Antibody Leads to Repair of Myelin Sheath in Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders

Comments

[ + Post Your Own ]

Now you're in the public comment zone. What follows is not Armenian Medical Network's stuff; it comes from other people and we don't vouch for it. A reminder: By using this Web site you agree to accept our Terms of Service. Click here to read the Rules of Engagement.

There are no comments for this entry yet. [ + Comment here + ]