Could Certain Antidepressants Slow Alzheimer's?

Could Certain Antidepressants Slow Alzheimer's?

Early study suggests Celexa, and other drugs in its class, might help, but many questions remain

WebMD News from HealthDay

By Randy Dotinga

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, May 14, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Preliminary research suggests that the commonly used antidepressant Celexa, and perhaps other drugs in its class, may temporarily lower levels of a protein that clogs the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease.

It's too early to know if the medication -- or the drugs that are similar to it -- could play a role in the prevention of the devastating brain-robbing disease. The authors of the new study only looked at the effects of a large dose of the drug for less than two days, and only healthy younger people took part in the research.

There's another important caveat: Previous efforts to reduce the levels of the protein, known as beta amyloid, haven't helped patients fend off Alzheimer's. And Celexa can cause some potentially serious side effects.

Still, "this is the first step in trying to move toward a preventive treatment," said study author Dr. Yvette Sheline, a professor of psychiatry, radiology and neurology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, in Philadelphia. "Up until now, people have been focused on treating Alzheimer's disease itself, but that seems to be happening too late."

An estimated 5 million people in the United States suffer from Alzheimer's disease, and one in three seniors will die while affected by the illness or another form of dementia, according to the Alzheimer's Association.

There's no cure for Alzheimer's, and the existing treatments can only provide relief of symptoms in some cases.

The new study examines the antidepressant Celexa, known by the generic name citalopram. It's one of several antidepressants (including Paxil, Zoloft and Prozac) that are known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).

The researchers report that they were able to use the drug to significantly lower the levels of beta amyloid in older mice that were genetically modified so they'd develop an Alzheimer's-like disease. Beta amyloid is a normal component of the brain, but its levels grow into gunk-like "plaques" in people with Alzheimer's disease.

The study researchers also gave 60-milligram (mg) doses of the drug or an inactive placebo to healthy people aged 21 to 50. They then measured levels of beta amyloid in the spinal fluid of the participants over a 37-hour period.

Production of beta amyloid slowed by 37 percent in the participants who received Celexa, the investigators found.

In the best-case scenario, the drug would reduce levels of the protein before the levels became dangerous and send patients on the road to Alzheimer's later in life, Sheline said.

But there are still many unanswered questions. For one, it's not clear if the drug would have this effect in the long term. Sheline noted that's the next step for research.

"Is that effect sustained for several weeks? We're going to be doing that research in older people aged 65 to 85," Sheline said. "If we show that the effect is maintained, that the beta amyloid stays lowered, then we'd do longer-term studies."

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If You’re Too Prone to Argue, You Could Soon be Prone For Good

And that’s even if nobody ever gets physical

(CC) Craig Sunter/Flickr

If you don’t like argumentative types, those hair-trigger individuals who just seem to go through life spoiling for verbal fights, take heart: according to Danish behavioral scientists, they probably won’t be around all that long. Of course, if you happen to be one of those chip-shouldered types yourself, you may want to speed up any long-term plans you’ve made. According to research reported in the latest Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, people who chronically bicker with family members, friends, or even neighbors have an ugly tendency to not make it past middle age.

The nuts and bolts: 10,000 volunteers in the 36–52 age range, a hefty sample population, were questioned as to how frequently they “experienced conflict” with relatives, partners, neighbors or associates, and to what degree they worried about their relationships, or felt others made too many demands on them. Then the researchers waited for eleven years. Then they looked at the subjects’ subsequent health records. They found that the habitual arguers were fully two to three times more likely to have already died than were their even-tempered, go-along peers.

Mind you, we’ve learned through previous studies that excessive arguing can put a strain on your health; we just didn’t realize it had such a tendency to be a fatal strain. That new knowledge suggests a fairly convincing reason to curtail your beefing: if you don’t, you could triple your chances of not lasting another full decade.

We also knew that members of argumentative families tended to have more health problems – in one vaguely macabre study, researchers made cuts in the arms of married couples and instructed them to then either argue or chat cordially; the arguers took measurably longer to heal – but the Danish group was surprised that the death effect applied even to those who mainly argued not with family members but with outsiders. Another thing that surprised them was an increased death rate among subjects who tended to frequently worry about or feel put upon by their children or partners – but not by others, family or otherwise.

Your personality is to blame

Nobody seems to think that it’s the act of arguing that proves prematurely fatal, but rather that both the poor health and the argumentativeness spring from some underlying personality factor. It’s been well established that hostility is associated with heart disease and early death from heart attack, for example; but arguing, which is basically just putting hostility into action, seems to elevate the effect and bring a number of other serious health risks into play: the leading cause of death in the study was cancer, followed in turn by heart disease and stroke, liver disease, accidents, and suicide. Exactly how each of these outcomes might be associated with arguing is a study it itself: are belligerent types also heavy drinkers (liver disease) or projecting self-hatred onto others (suicide)?

What the Danish researchers can say is that the link between interpersonal conflict and early demise held up even when they controlled for everything from sex and income to symptoms of depression. So it seems only prudent to heed the conclusion of the study’s lead author: “It would be a good idea to reduce the amount of conflict in your life.”

Or in blunter terms: Stay cool, stay composed, and stay alive.

(By Robert S. Wieder for CalorieLab)

This entry was postedon Monday, May 12th, 2014and is filed under Heart Disease and Heart Disease Reversal, Sociology and environment.You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.Permalink.

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