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The International Herald Tribune http://www.iht.com Race is on for drugs to save the memory David Tuller NYT Thursday, July 31, 2003 NEW YORK They are called smart pills or brain boosters or, to use the preferred pharmaceutical term, cognitive enhancers. But whatever the name given to compounds created to prevent or treat memory loss, drug companies and supplement producers - eager to meet the demands of a rapidly growing market - are scrambling to exploit what they view as an enormous medical and economic opportunity. Three drugs being prescribed for Alzheimer's disease - donepezil (Aricept), galantamine (Reminyl) and rivastigmine (Exelon) - have been shown to delay somewhat the loss of mental abilities in people with the illness. So has the drug memantine, which has been used for years in Europe but has not been approved in the United States. Some experts also say that performing mental exercises and adding fish oil to the diet can delay memory decline. Pharmaceutical companies are investigating dozens of other compounds to see whether they can help people who have memory difficulties but have not progressed to Alzheimer's. Some researchers hope that drugs will eventually prevent the deficits that even healthy elderly people experience. Much of the excitement among pharmaceutical companies, which have dozens of drugs in development, stems from advances in clarifying some of the multiple brain processes and biochemical pathways that can hinder or help memory storage and retrieval, said Paul Solomon, a professor of psychology at Williams College. "The basic research into the causes of memory disorders is going very rapidly," said Solomon, who is also co-director of the Memory Clinic at the Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington. "And if you found a drug that truly facilitated memory and was well tolerated and safe, the market would be staggering." It will probably be at least five years before any of those drugs meet the standards for approval by the Food and Drug Administration, researchers said. In the meantime, nutritional-supplement makers are selling products with names like Senior Moment and Brain Power. The products incorporate herbs and other ingredients long believed in Eastern traditions to improve mental awareness. Clearly, the market for memory enhancers is growing with the aging of the population. Steven DeKosky, a professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, says he has noticed a marked increase in anxiety among baby boomers, who are watching their parents descend into Alzheimer's and hoping that new medicines will help them avoid the same fate. "People in their 40's and 50's are saying, 'How can you help my mother, and by the way, how can I avoid this?'" DeKosky said. "Ten years ago, people wanted to know how frequently they should have their blood pressure checked and what sorts of food they should eat. Nobody ever asked what they should be doing to prevent themselves from getting a late-life dementia." Even among those already suffering memory loss, Alzheimer's is far from the only source. An estimated four million Americans have it, but millions more suffer from other disorders that can lead to dementia, including Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, stroke, head trauma, depression and schizophrenia. Experts estimate that an additional four million people have a syndrome called mild cognitive impairment, which may progress to Alzheimer's in a majority of cases. People with the impairment can function on their own but have gaps in their memories. Economic imperatives are also driving the search for new and better treatments for memory disorders. The cost of Alzheimer's alone - in terms of nursing home care, lost wages, reduced productivity of volunteers providing the care, and other factors - is $100 billion or more, according to Dr. William Thies, vice president for medical and scientific affairs of the Alzheimer's Association, a research and support group. SOURCE: The New York Times / The International Herald Tribune http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=104654 * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn