Trials of Autophagy Enhancement to Treat Parkinson ' s Disease

Researchers are planning trials of a repurposed drug in order to test the effectiveness of enhanced autophagy to treat Parkinson's disease, a condition characterized by loss of the small population of dopaminergenic neurons in the brain. Autophagy is a cellular housekeeping method, and the various genes associated with Parkinson's suggest that the underlying disease mechanism is made worse by inadequate clearance of damaged mitochondria in neurons. Beyond Parkinson's disease, methods of producing increased autophagy are of general interest to those who would like to slow the aging process. Greater levels of autophagy are observed in many of the interventions demonstrated to modestly slow aging in laboratory species, but despite that there has been so far little progress in moving towards clinical therapies based on enhanced autophagy. We should probably expect only marginal results from this particular trial, but it will hopefully help to pave the way for future efforts that do more to boost autophagy in a targeted, deliberate way. Scientists are hoping that a single drug can treat two devastating brain diseases: Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. The drug is nilotinib, which is approved to treat a form of leukemia. In late 2015, researchers found that small doses of the drug appeared to help a handful of people with Parkinson's disease and a related form of dementia. They'd tried the unlikely treatment because they knew nilotinib triggered cells to get rid of faulty compo...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs