Posted by Michael Wonder on 06 Jul 2021
The controversial approval of an Alzheimer’s drug reignites the battle over the underlying cause of the disease
6 July 2021 - A new treatment targets amyloid clumps in the brain, but researchers have long debated whether that will actually help patients.
Neurologist Matthew S. Schrag was surprised when he heard the FDA had approved a controversial Alzheimer’s drug. There was scant evidence the treatment worked, in his view.
Even more concerning to Schrag: the FDA’s apparent embrace of a long-debated theory about Alzheimer’s disease, which afflicts more than 6 million Americans. The amyloid hypothesis, which has dominated the field for decades, holds that toxic clumps in the brain, called amyloid beta, are the main driver of the disease and that removing them will slow cognitive decline.
