THE ESSENTIAL
- ADHD drugs may treat symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.
- According to the WHO, 55.2 million people worldwide have Alzheimer’s or a related disease.
Doubly useful drugs: according to British researchers patients with dementia who were given medications for Attention Deficit Disorder with or without Hyperactivity (ADHD) in children, such as Ritalin, saw their cognition and brain function improve. significantly improve.
These drugs complement each other well because they stimulate a region of the brain that influences things like attention, learning and memory by targeting norepinephrine, a chemical that is released by a network of specialized neurons in the body.
2000 patients
To reach this conclusion, the team of researchers analyzed 19 old studies published between 1980 and 2021 that looked at the effect of ADHD drugs given to people with Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment for two weeks. at one year.
The 2,000 patients, mostly between the ages of 65 and 80, saw a “small but significant” improvement in their overall cognition, including memory, verbal fluency and language.
The team also found that the drugs influenced behavior, and the patients felt less apathy and lack of motivation.
Interesting perspective
Repurposing existing drugs to treat dementia was an “interesting prospect” according to Dr Mark Dallas, associate professor of cellular neuroscience at the University of Reading.
Dr Andrew Reid, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Nottingham, meanwhile said the study opens up a “promising new avenue of research” as it suggests “a way to identify those at risk and treating them much earlier than is currently possible” reports le Daily Mail.
degenerative disease
Alzheimer’s disease which affects 1 million people in France is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain, in which the accumulation of abnormal proteins leads to the death of nerve cells.
This disrupts the transmitters that carry the messages and causes the brain to shrink.