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Alzheimer’s disease affects the lives of over 50 million people worldwide. Researchers have been trying without much success to find a cure or treatment for this scourge, but according to Dr. Gregory Poland of the Mayo Clinic, a new drug may finally offer some hope for the families of Alzheimer’s patients. He appeared on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program to discuss the benefits of Donanemab.
“Donanemab is really a fantastic first-generation drug for Alzheimer’s,” Dr. Poland told Len and Michael. “It’s a monoclonal antibody. It slowed down cognitive and functional decline by 35%. We don’t have anything like that in the Alzheimer’s drug treatment space, so this is really good news.”
FDA approval still is needed, but Dr. Poland thinks that will easily come despite one possible, serious side-effect. “It literally removes those tangles of protein (in the brain), but one of the consequences is that it can cause bleeding in the brain, and so, as I called it, this is a first-generation drug, but it means that we’re headed in the right track to how do we treat this. Preventing it is a different story, and much more research is going to have to happen for that.”
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