welcome to the organic green doctor blog

i am a family physician who was diagnosed with
early mild cognitive impairment(mci) amnestic type on december 21, 2010
this is a precursor to alzheimers disease
because of this diagnosis i have opted to stop practicing medicine
this blog will be about my journey with this disease
please feel free to follow me along this path
i will continue blogging on organic gardening, green living,
solar power, rainwater collection, and healthy living
i will blog on these plus other things noted to be interesting

Friday, June 17, 2022

alzheimers news-it doesnt work in early onset alzheimers disease

ALZHEIMERS DISEASE-IT DOESNT WORK IN EARLY ONSET ALZHEIMERS DISEASE

early onset alzheimers disease occurs in folks at a younger age than late onset alzheimers 
it is caused by an inherited gene that causes about 1% of the cases of alzheimers
most folks you know who have alzheimers disease dont have early onset alzheimers 
it can be identified with a blood test

late onset alzheimers disease occurs in later life commonly after 65
many have the late onset gene like me the apoe 4 gene
this gene is different in that it increases the risk from 5-20 times but how well you take care of your life can determine if it causes you to have alzheimers disease

i read this week that a researcher said that if you could take all the healthy things you could do and put it in a pill and take it everyday 
then
you could probably prevent or slow down alzheimers disease

thats true with late onset alzheimers disease but not early onset alzheimers 

with early onset if you have the gene then you will get early onset alzheimers
these folks can be in their 30s 40s or 50s

a few years ago everyone including me was excited about the colombian study in patients with early onset alzheimers disease
i had a slide on it that i discussed when i did my alzheimers talks
one of the professors here at ucsb is involved with those studies

in a mountain region in colombia there is a group of native indigenous people that carry a rare gene for early onset alzheimers disease
they have the highest incidence of alzheimers disease in the world

roche decided to do a study there using their drug crenezumab that works similar to my drug aduhelm but differently to remove amyloid from the brain
the hope is that by removing the amyloid from these patients brains that their alzheimers disease will be slowed down or prevented

after being in the studies for 5-8 years the crenezumab doesnt seem to work in those folks

this has happened with other drugs used in patients with early onset alzheimers disease

in non early onset alzheimers like i have there are several drugs being tested including aduhelm that will be coming with final results in the next 2-5 years that hopefully show they will work in this type of alzheimers disease late onset the most common one seen

these drugs are also as i wrote about recently are being used now in clinical trials in folks who have prodromal or prealzheimers disease
folks with amyloid and tau tangles but have no symptoms
those results wont be available for several years

although these new findings with crenezumab are disappointing its not unexpected

heres hoping my drug aduhelm works on my version of alzheimers disease
time will tell

the organicgreen doctor

2 comments:

  1. Doctor. I hope you will have good results. I so enjoy your blog and have learned so much. I have a question. Which drug did you advise early intervention with. Aricept or namenda? I think I have read it in your blogs in the past but couldn’t find it in my saves. Thank you in advance. Cheryl W

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    1. thanks for reading my blog. aricept (donepezil) is usually the drug given when a patient is first diagnosed. usually if they can not tolerate this class of drugs then they will be given namenda (memantine). also later as the disease advances and the aricept (donepezil) loses its effectiveness then namenda may be added on. togd

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