HealthCare News
Acing Alzheimer's with ACE InhibitorsDrugs that inhibit ACE are readily available and are much use to lower blood pressure. Altace (ramipril) is an example of an ACE inhibitor. At least two ACE inhibitors, Aceon (perindopril) and Capoten (captopril) are known to cross the bloodbrain barrier, to make the voyage from the bloodstream into the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and penetrate the brain. The Study: The investigators randomly assigned 162 hypertensive mild to moderate Alzheimer patients to take one of these two brain-penetrating ACE inhibitors, or a non-brain-penetrating ACE inhibitor or calcium-channel blocker , and followed them for a year. Patients treated with the brain-penetrating ACE inhibitor did not decline while patients in the other two groups experienced large declines. Comments: "This studys findings are provocative and exciting, but readers must be skeptical. There are a number of methodologic weaknesses in the study," writes David Knopman, the Mayo Clinic, in the journal Neurology. Dr. Knopman feels it is not clear which one of the ACE inhibitors achieved this stunning result and he is concerned about the amount of decline in the control groups which was "much larger than expected." Read entire article... |
