This common drug could prevent and even reverse Alzheimer’s

A team of researchers at Harvard Medical School has identified a deficiency they believe could be the root cause of Alzheimer’s.

Better yet, they believe a drug could prevent and reverse the crippling disease.

Published in Nature, the findings are based on 10 years of research that includes lab mice and analysis of human brain tissue and blood samples.

Researchers found that a loss of lithium, a mineral which occurs naturally in the brain, is one of the earliest indicators of the onset of Alzheimer’s — and adding lithium protects it from deteriorating.

“The idea that lithium deficiency could be a cause of Alzheimer’s disease is new and suggests a different therapeutic approach,” said senior author Bruce Yankner, professor of genetics and neurology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS.

In their experiments, mice were treated with lithium orotate. They found that it prevented brain cell damage and restored memory, even in older mice with advanced disease.

“What impresses me the most about lithium is the widespread effect it has on the various manifestations of Alzheimer’s. I really have not seen anything quite like it all my years of working on this disease,” said Yankner.

Notably, scientists also found that maintaining stable lithium levels in early life prevented the onset of Alzheimer’s.

These promising results may potentially provide a new standard for early diagnosis, prevention, and treatment.

The findings also support previous population studies that revealed that higher lithium levels in the environment, particularly in drinking water, correlated with lower rates of dementia.

Alzheimer’s has long baffled experts as the expression of the disease and its causes are far from uniform.

Many people with amyloid protein buildup show no signs of decline, and treatments that target it have thus far proven ineffective at reversing memory loss and, at best, only slightly reduce the rate of decline.

Though genetic and environmental factors play a role, scientists are unsure why the disease develops in some with these factors and not others.

The study authors believe lithium may be the critical missing link.

“My hope is that lithium will do something more fundamental than anti-amyloid or anti-tau therapies, not just lessening but reversing cognitive decline and improving patients’ lives,” said Yankner.

Yankner and his team stressed that their findings need to be confirmed through clinical trials in humans, but remain hopeful that measuring lithium levels could help screen for and treat Alzheimer’s

“You have to be careful about extrapolating from mouse models, and you never know until you try it in a controlled human clinical trial,” Yankner said. “But so far the results are very encouraging.”