BP pill has potential to slow down Alzheimer's

A high blood pressure drug has the potential to slow down Alzheimer's disease by improving the flow of blood to parts of the brain linked to memory, a study suggests.

Researchers found the drug nilvadipine increased blood flow to the brain's memory and learning centre among people with Alzheimer's without affecting other parts of the brain.

The findings indicate that the known decrease in cerebral blood flow in patients with Alzheimer's can be reversed in some regions.

However, an important question is whether this observed increase in cerebral blood flow translates to clinical benefits, the researchers said.

Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia.

The risk for the disease increases with age and the causes are largely unknown.

Previous research has shown that blood flow to the brain declines in early Alzheimer's disease.
Nilvadipine is a calcium channel blocker used to treat high blood pressure.

Researchers sought to discover whether nilvadipine could help treat Alzheimer's disease by comparing the use of nilvadipine and a placebo among people with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease.

They randomly assigned 44 participants to receive either nilvadipine or a placebo for 6 months.

Neither researchers nor the participants knew who received the drug or the placebo that was evenly divided among the 2 groups.

At the study's start after 6 months, researchers measured blood flow to specific regions of the brain using a unique magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique.

Results showed that blood flow to the hippocampus- the brain's memory and learning center-increased by 20 % among the nilvadipine group compared to the placebo group.

Blood flow to other regions of the brain was unchanged in both groups.

This high BP treatment holds promise as it doesn't appear to decrease blood flow to the brain, which could cause more harm than benefit, said an associate Prof.

Even though no medical treatment is without risk, getting treatment for high BP could be important to maintain brain health in patients with Alzheimer's disease, said the Prof.

Researchers note that sample sizes were too small and follow-up time too short to reliably study the effects of this cerebral blood flow increase on structural brain measures and cognitive measures.

Study participants were screened between 2013 and 2015 as part of a larger research project comparing nilvadipine to placebo among more than 500 people with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease.

In that larger project, effects on cerebral blood flow were not measured . Overall, no clinical benefit was noted with the use of nilvadipine.

However, a subgroup of patients with only mild symptoms of disease did show benefit, in the sense of a slower decline in memory.

Previous studies have hinted high blood pressure could reduce the risk of developing dementia.

The researchers think that beneficial effects on brain  blood flow could explain part of this effect.

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A high blood pressure drug has the potential to slow down Alzheimer's disease by improving the flow of blood to parts of the brain linked to memory, a study suggests.

Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/science-and-environment/bp-pill-has-potential-to-slow-down-alzheimers-study-741185.html

A high blood pressure drug has the potential to slow down Alzheimer's disease by improving the flow of blood to parts of the brain linked to memory, a study suggests.

Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/science-and-environment/bp-pill-has-potential-to-slow-down-alzheimers-study-741185.html

A high-salt diet may increase the risk of dementia

Consuming high-salt diet may be harmful as it may increase the risk of dementia later in life, warns a recent study. Researchers explained that high-salt diet reduces resting blood flow to the brain and causes dementia in mice. The study is the first to unveil a gut-brain connection, linking high dietary salt intake to neurovascular and cognitive impairment. The findings illuminate a potential future target for countering harmful effects to the brain caused by excess salt consumption. The researchers explained that mice fed a high-salt diet developed dementia even when blood pressure did not rise.

Researchers said, ‘This was surprising since, in humans, the deleterious effects of salt on cognition were attributed to hypertension’. The mice were given food containing four percent or eight percent salt, representing an 8 to 16 fold increase in salt compared to a normal mouse diet. The higher level was comparable to the high end of human salt consumption. After eight weeks, the team examined the mice using magnetic resonance imaging. The results revealed that the mice showed marked reductions in resting cerebral blood flow in two areas of the brain involved in learning and memory: 28 percent decrease in the cortex and 25 percent in the hippocampus.

The scientists discovered that an impaired ability of cells lining blood vessels, called endothelial cells, reduced the production of nitric oxide, a gas normally produced by the endothelial cells to relax blood vessels and increase blood flow. Rodents that only ate the high-salt diet developed dementia, performing significantly worse on an object recognition test. 

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Decoded: What causes stuttering.

Stuttering is caused by a reduced blood flow in speech processing areas of the brain, a study by researchers has showed. 

The findings showed that regional cerebral blood flow is reduced in the Broca’s area — the region in the frontal lobe of the brain linked to speech production. 

In addition, a greater abnormality of cerebral blood flow in the posterior language loop — associated with processing of words that we hear — correlates with more severe stuttering.

According to researchers, a common patho-physiology throughout the neural “language” loop that connects the frontal and posterior temporal lobe likely contributes to stuttering severity.

“When other portions of the brain circuit related to speech were also affected according to our blood flow measurements, we saw more severe stuttering in both children and adults,” said lead author Jay Desai, MD, clinical neurologist at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) in California. 

In the study,  the researchers were able to zero in on the Broca’s area as well as related brain circuitry specifically linked to speech, using regional cerebral blood flow as a measure of brain activity, since blood flow is typically coupled with neural activity.
“Blood flow was inversely correlated to the degree of stuttering — the more severe the stuttering, the less blood flow to this part of the brain,  said Desai, adding that the study results were “quite striking”. 

The study was published in the journal Human Brain Mapping.

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