A New Drug That Stops Alzheimer's Disease?

Alzheimer's disease continues to be a growing problem for people all over the world. With only one in 250 drugs for dementia successfully passing through a clinical trial, it is important to find a solution for this problem.

A company, TauRx, claims that they have developed a drug that can stop Alzheimer's.

Out of the 900 patients that tried the drug, only 15% displayed positive results. The study was conducted by splitting up the sample of patients into three groups. While one group received a high dose of the drug, LMTX, the other group received a low dose. The third group was given a placebo.

Only 15% of the patients who took the drug showed positive results. Throughout the 15 months of the trial, their Alzheimer's stopped progressing. A scientist may say that the positive results arose from cherry-picking data due to the small size of the sub-group that showed positive results. TauRx argues that this result comes from the way that other drugs for Alzheimer's disease can interact with LMTX.

There has been an abundance of controversy regarding LMTX.

Although some scientists have intensely criticized this trial, others have stated that even a small positive effect in the right direction can be a sign of progress.

Currently, drugs associated with Alzheimer's Disease have only relieved symptoms in the short run or haven't worked at all. A reason behind why Alzheimer's is such a hard disease to cure is due to the inability to test whether someone has dementia. In addition, Alzheimer's has only been studied in the past 20 years.

TauRx will announce their full results of the study later this year. Despite the controversy, pharmaceutical companies will continue to try and come up with an effective way to treat Alzheimer's Disease.