Published on December 17, 2009 at 3:36 AM
This week’s issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association
(Dec 16) features a report on a long-term, prospective study of elderly,
dementia-free individuals led by researchers from Boston University
School of Medicine and the Framingham Heart Study focusing on the
association between the protein hormone Leptin and the risk of
developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Specifically, people with higher
baseline circulating Leptin levels were found to have a significantly
reduced incidence of AD and dementia. Individuals in the lowest quartile
of gender-specific Leptin levels had an absolute AD risk of 25%, while
persons in the highest quartile had only a 6% risk over a 12-year
follow-up period.
Professor Mark A. Smith, Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) of Neurotez and
Professor of Pathology at Case Western Reserve University stated “In
support of the importance of Leptin in AD, the article quotes
experimental data from Neurotez where we have shown that Leptin
decreases the underlying AD pathology and improves memory function in
animals.” In the article’s conclusion, and citing another paper from
Neurotez, the authors state, “... more importantly, (these findings) may
open new pathways for possible preventive and therapeutic interventions.”
“Neurotez was not at all involved in this important study,” said
Neurotez CEO Nikolaos Tezapsidis, “but the results strongly support our
plans to take a Leptin product into clinical trials as a novel hormone
replacement therapy for AD.”
Comments from Dr. J. Wesson Ashford, MD, PhD (Stanford/VA Aging Clinical
Research Center in Stanford, Calif.) who is leading the Neurotez trial
and is co-investigator in an SBIR grant to Neurotez can be found in an
interview at WebMD published yesterday: http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/news/20091215/more-leptin-may-mean-less-alzheimers
AD represents a major unmet medical need, with current medicines
providing only limited symptomatic relief, representing a global market
of $5 billion.
Source Neurotez, Inc.