New vaccine offers hope to Alzheimer's patients

People suffering from Alzheimer's can now hope for some relief. A potent new vaccine has showed hope of relief to the people as it helps combat the severely debilitating and complicated conditions of the disease that affects people in the old age.

Alzheimer?s disease is caused by amyloid precursor protein (APP), a protein found on the outer membrane of nerve cells, which instead of being broken down, forms a harmful substance called beta-amyloid. This substance gets deposited as plaques and kills brain cells.

In the study led by Bengt Winblad, professor at Karolinska Institutet's Alzheimer's Disease Research Centre in Sweden, working with leading neurologists, observed that 80 percent of the patients in the trials of medicine developed their own protective antibodies against beta-amyloid without getting any side-effects over the three years of the study, says a report of journal Lancet Neurology.

Alzheimer's is an incurable disease as no cure is available now. It is considered as one of the fastest growing global health epidemic, as per World Health Organisation and the currently used medicines can at best only reduce the symptoms of disease, says a Karolinska statement.

In order to find a cure, scientists are also looking forward for vaccination. The vaccination study was done ten years ago that was discontinued due to several side effects. The vaccine triggered certain white blood cells (T cells), that treated body's own brain tissue as enemy cells.

The new treatment of Alzheimer?s involves active immunization that uses a type of vaccine CAD106 made to trigger the body's immune system against beta-amyloid. When the second clinical trial on humans was performed the vaccine was modified to affect only the harmful beta-amyloid.

According to researchers this observation suggests that the CAD106 vaccine is a tolerable treatment for patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's. Further Large scale trials have to be performed to confirm the CAD106 vaccine's efficacy.

--with inputs from IANS