SAN ANTONIO — An increasing number of medications are being found that can not only treat the disease it was intended for, but others as well.
As we report in today's Healthy SA, one drug used to treat HIV could slow down the progression of Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia.
The drug is called lamivudine, or for short 3TC. It is an antiviral medicine that has been around for decades that prevents HIV or the hepatitis B virus from multiplying in the body. A pilot study led by the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio revealed significant improvement in neurodegeneration and inflammation. Dr. A. Campbell Sullivan, a clinical associate professor with the Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer's & Neurodegenerative Diseases within UT Health San Antonio told us, "40% of our human DNA is comprised of these viral like sequences. And when they get activated, they seem to sort of promote or help the neurotoxicity. It's like it's helping the disease spread and get a little bit worse."
Researchers noticed the drug works similarly in those with HIV and Alzheimer's. Dr. Sullivan added, "My colleague showed that there are certain viral like sequences that get activated in Alzheimer's disease. She showed that this medication helped suppress that viral like activity, which in turn suppressed the neurodegeneration and sort of stopped the cell death."
The Alzheimer's Association says nearly seven million Americans are living with Alzheimer's. And one in three seniors die with Alzheimer's or another form of dementia. The disease kills more people than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined. Dr. Sullivan said, "Oftentimes patients will get a diagnosis and they're kind of just sent home. And now what we're trying to do is we're trying to intervene really early."
And like many other medications used for multiple illnesses, the goal is a successful repurposing of 3TC to make a huge step in battling Alzheimer's.
"It goes to show the complexity of our bodies, the complexity of the diseases," Dr. Sullivan said. "There's a lot of factors that can contribute to someone, developing Alzheimer's disease."
The UT Health Science Center just submitted an application for a larger, multi-state trial including researchers in L.A. and Brown University.