Thoughts on What is Revealed in the Trial Data for Amyloid- β Clearance

There are now several immunotherapies capable of clearing amyloid-β aggregates from the aging brain, and a sizable amount of clinical trial data to look through. Sadly, this approach doesn't much help patients in the later stages of Alzheimer's disease, but the evidence to date suggests that it may be useful in prevention if the clearance is conducted early enough. Amyloid-β aggregation causes mild cognitive impairment in and of itself, but really just sets the stage for a set of different processes, inflammation and tau aggregation, that drive the late stage of Alzheimer's disease. At that point, clearing amyloid-β makes little difference to the outcome. It is worth noting that these immunotherapies bear a meaningful risk of serious side-effects. That side-effect profile will have to improve if anti-amyloid-β therapies are to become widely used as a preventative treatment in patients prior to evident cognitive impairment. Clinical trials have proven that the anti-amyloid therapies donanemab and lecanemab slow the terrible fall into neurodegenerative aging of the Alzheimer's type (AD). As we noted, one key reason these trials succeeded where many promising antibodies had failed is that they started giving people these treatments earlier in the course of the disease. The reason why early treatment is critical is not primarily because there's less beta-amyloid in the brain earlier on in the course of AD. Instead, the benefit of acting early comes from the greater o...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs