Posted on 07/19/2006 11:03:39 PM PDT by neverdem
A blood product normally used to treat immune disorders and a type of leukemia may also slow or stop mental decline in people with Alzheimer’s disease, researchers reported yesterday at an Alzheimer’s conference in Madrid.
The product is called IVIg (pronounced EYE-vig), for intravenous immunoglobulin, also known as gamma globulin. Made from pooled blood plasma, it is a thick soup of antibodies, the proteins made by the immune system to get rid of unwanted substances. It has been used for 30 years for other diseases and is dripped into a vein like a transfusion.
But the findings in Alzheimer’s are based on an experiment involving only eight patients with no comparison group and need to be verified by larger studies, scientists said.
“This is not ready for widespread use,” said Dr. Norman R. Relkin, director of the Memory Disorders Program at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
Dr. Relkin and scientific advisers to the Alzheimer’s Association, the presenter of the conference, nonetheless said the results were promising and might lead to new methods of treatment, and to a better understanding of the disease.
Although the findings were preliminary, Dr. Relkin said, some doctors were already giving IVIg infusions to people with mild cognitive impairment, a mental decline that is often an early form of Alzheimer’s. IVIg is in short supply and can cost up to $10,000 a month, depending on the dose, and since it is not approved for Alzheimer’s, patients will probably have to pay for it out of their own pockets.
The leading theory of Alzheimer’s is that the disease is caused by deposits of a protein called amyloid that build up in the brain, disrupt nerve function and ultimately kill brain cells. IVIg contains antibodies that stick to amyloid and may help clear it out of the brain. IVIg...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
A lot of diseases are a result of defects in the immune system, including cancer and diabetes and hypothyroidism.
The immune system is complex and does surveilance on a wide variety of abnormalities.
But I don't think the answer for treatment of Alzheimer's is going to be simply correcting "an immune deficiency." I think it will be multifactorial.
This can't be true. Michael J Fox (ie, Teenwolf) said just today that the only way to cure any disease is to kill off as many embryos or fetuses we can.
"Dr. Relkin said he and his colleagues had decided to test IVIg in Alzheimer’s patients after doing a small study in which they found that healthy, nondemented people had lots of antibodies to amyloid, whereas those with Alzheimer’s did not."
Amyloidosis also occurs with renal failure. Are amyloid antibodies below normal there also?
Never heard of anti-amyloid antibodies, but I am definitely out of the loop lately.
Sure we aren't talking about scavenger white blood cells that eat foreign material or about liver enzyme products that attach to certain chemicals to make them soluble so they'll be excreted in the kidneys? or some other nonantibody mechanism?
There are lots of mechanisms for ridding the body of excess or foreign biochemicals, mechanisms that don't involve elaborating antibodies made by the "immune system".
From the article:
"Dr. Relkin said he and his colleagues had decided to test IVIg in Alzheimer’s patients after doing a small study in which they found that healthy, nondemented people had lots of antibodies to amyloid, whereas those with Alzheimer’s did not."
It was used over 50 years ago for those who were exposed to measles. Minerva Pediatr. 1950 Dec [Prevention of measles with gamma globulin in 15,000 subjects treated with repeated doses.]
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