Experimental Drug Shows Promise To Treat Alzheimer's

NEW YORK: An experimental drug has been found to protect Alzheimer's-inflicted mice from memory deterioration, despite a high-glycemic-index (GI) diet meant to boost blood sugar levels.

The experimental drug from the US-based Eli Lilly and Company mimics the hunger-signalling hormone ghrelin.

"The present results suggest that ghrelin might improve cognition in Alzheimer's disease via a central nervous system mechanism involving insulin signalling," authors of the study published in the journal Scientific Reports wrote.

"With chronic diseases like diabetes and Alzheimer's, you need to do a long-term study," said examiner Inga Kadish, assistant professor at University of Alabama School of Medicine at Birmingham.

"So we did an experiment with the worst-case scenario, a high-GI diet. Alzheimer's disease has 10 or 20 risk factors and some of the strongest risk factors are diabetes or metabolic syndrome."

In contrast to short-term administration of the "ghrelin agonista drug -- which impairs insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance, which are signs of metabolic syndrome and diabetes -- the researchers found that the long-term ghrelin agonist treatment did not impair insulin signalling and glucose tolerance in Alzheimer's disease mice fed with a high GI diet.

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