Memory loss in Alzheimer’s can now be reversed

Currently, no treatment can stop Alzheimer’s disease, but now, a new study has offered hope by showing that it possible to reverse memory loss in the patients. Results from quantitative MRI and neuropsychological testing show unprecedented improvements in ten patients with early Alzheimer’s disease (AD) or its precursors following treatment with a programmatic and personalised therapy.

The study of 10 patients, which comes jointly from the Buck Institute for Research on Ageing and the UCLA Easton Laboratories for Neurodegenerative Disease Research, is the first to objectively show that memory loss in patients can be reversed, and improvement sustained, using a complex, 36-point therapeutic personalised program that involves comprehensive changes in diet, brain stimulation, exercise, optimisation of sleep, specific pharmaceuticals and vitamins, and multiple additional steps that affect brain chemistry.

“All of these patients had either well-defined mild cognitive impairment, subjective cognitive impairment (SCI) or had been diagnosed with AD before beginning the programme,” said author Dale Bredesen, who noted that patients who had to discontinue work were able to return to work and those struggling at their jobs were able to improve their performance.

“Follow up testing showed some of the patients going from abnormal to normal.”

All but one of the ten patients included in the study are at genetic risk for AD, carrying at least one copy of the APOE4 allele. Five of the patients carry two copies of APOE4 which gives them a 10-12 fold increased risk of developing AD. “We’re entering a new era,” said Bredesen. “The old advice was to avoid testing for APOE because there was nothing that could be done about it. Now we’re recommending that people find out their genetic status as early as possible.”