Alzheimer's disease is a devastating common disorder affecting primarily elderly people with a prevalence of five percent of the population over sixty-five, increasing to twenty percent over the age of eighty. An estimated ten million people in the world have the disease, at a cost of $65 billion for U.S. patients in 1995. The prevalence and the cost continue to escalate with increase in the mean age of the population. Currently, there is no cure for Alzheimer's disease and treatments are palliative rather than treating the underlying causes of the disease. An over production of beta-amyloid (A beta), a natural occurring peptide processed from beta-amyloid precursor protein (APP), is the central key factor in the development of Alzheimer's. Factors influencing over production of A beta increase the prevalence and early onset of Alzheimer's. ? ? Most current drug development programs are focused on affecting the activities of the processing enzymes to cause a reduction in A beta. However, these processing enzymes are also involved in other important biological processes. A change in processing activity predicts other health problems, in a novel approach, proposed research would identify a structure that binds to APP altering its conformation and processing to cause reduction in the abundance of A beta. Such a specific approach and the evidence from identified genetic changes in APP that affect early onset of Alzheimer's with lack of any other apparent health problem, predict a high utility of such an anti-Alzheimer's therapeutic. ? ? ?
