Can Cancer & Alzheimer's Disease Be Treated With The Same Medicine?

The cure for Alzheimer's disease is still quite elusive. A new research however is hopeful that cancer drugs being used and developed today will also be the answer to Alzheimer's.

According to Huffington Post, aging is the common factor between Alzheimer's disease and cancer. As people age, there are biological changes that make them susceptible to cancer and Alzheimer's. It is with this knowledge that health experts are banking on. It is hoped that by understanding the biology of aging better, drugs can be finally developed to cure ALzheimer's. The scientists are hopeful that drugs being used to treat cancer can be repurposed to treat Alzheimer's as well. TO be able to do so can be significant. 

Based on large population studies, one interesting finding is that those who get cancer are the ones less likely to get Alzheimer's disease and vice versa. This pattern makes it worth looking at. What is it with one condition that precludes the other? 

Can it be cause those drugs given to cancer patients are protecting them against Alzheimer's? This is really worth investigating. 

The Huffington Post reported that the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation is already investing in more research to examine whether cancer medications can be helpful for Alzheimer's patients. The agency believe that drugs used to test cancer can also be helpful for Alzheimer's patients in some way.

Currently, the drugs being tested are tyrosine kinase inhibitors. These drugs are designed to block cancer cells growth, signaling and division. it is believed that by inhibiting the growth of the said cancer cells, some forms of cancer can become totally cured. 

In particular, Nilotinib, which is an FDA-approved tyrosine kinase inhibitor used to treat leukemia, is speculated to have some healing properties on Alzheimer's disease. Experts are looking to see if this can remove Alzheimer's-associated proteins, such as beta-amyloid and tau.

Apart from tyrosine kinase inhibitors, researchers are looking to see if epigenetic-targeted drugs, designed to treat cancer, can have functions when it comes to helping Alzheimer's patients as well. 

It remains to be seen if the growing efforts of think tanks and researchers will pay off in the end. This can very well be a breakthrough in Alzheimer's disease treatment research.