By Ray Blanco
This post Curing America’s Most Expensive Health Crisis appeared first on Daily Reckoning.
Today, more than 5 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, and millions more will be diagnosed in the years to come.
But those days could soon be over.
I’ve discovered a small group of biotech companies with drugs in development that have the potential to do much more than just mask Alzheimer symptoms. In fact, they’re being designed to attack the disease at its roots, possibly halting its progression.
That’s great news for anyone affected by Alzheimer’s and also opens up a huge profit opportunity for you — a chance to make life-changing wealth.
Here’s what you need to know…
A Next-Level Alzheimer’s Breakthrough
As I mentioned earlier, a small group of biotechs is racing to create what could be one of most important drugs in biotech history.
To understand how it works, you first need to know a bit about how the disease progresses. According to the most accepted theory, it all comes down to proteins.
Proteins are intricate molecules that play a diverse role in all living things. They are made up of sequences of smaller molecules. There are billions of possible ways to arrange these sequences.
If a protein folds into the wrong shape for any reason, it not only might not work properly, it might become toxic.
Researchers believe that is what’s happening in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Their brains are filled with a misshaped “toxic” protein known as beta amyloid.
Over time, the accumulation of large amounts of toxic protein starts killing brain cells.
To fight Alzheimer’s disease, we need a way to remove these toxic beta amyloids from the body.
The tricky part is that these proteins misfold in many different variants, and each has to be identified and studied to find out what it does and why.
It’s one of the reasons progress finding a cure has been so slow. But that’s on the verge of changing, thanks to new research.
Maybe Not First… but Possibly the Best
So far, medical science has only been able to slow the disease’s progression by improving communication between affected neurons.
This is a short-term solution at best.
The need for a permanent solution is driving much of the new Alzheimer’s research.
And a small number of advanced biotech companies are on the cusp of finding a long-lasting cure.
One company’s new treatment is now in Phase 3 FDA testing, the last stage of clinical trials before the company can file a New Drug Application (NDA) asking for permission to sell.
The drug works by attaching antibodies to the beta-amyloid proteins. That signals the immune system to attack them.
While the early data from the drug have been promising, they’ve also come with an important caveat — the drug isn’t very selective.
In addition to clearing out the toxic beta amyloids, it’s clearing out the harmless plaque around them. That leaves gaps in the brain that fill with fluid, leading to a dangerous condition known as edema.
As a result drug dosage has to be strictly monitored, and doctors need to find a balance …read more
Source:: Daily Reckoning feed
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