Summary
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that mainly causes dementia. It is a serious threat to the health of the global elderly population. Considerable money and effort has been invested in the development of drug therapy for AD worldwide. Many drug therapies are currently under development or in clinical trials, based on two known mechanisms of AD, namely, Aβ toxicity and the abnormal Tau hyperphosphorylation. Numerous drugs are also being developed for other AD associated mechanisms such as neuroinflammation, neurotransmitter imbalance, oxidative damage and mitochondrial dysfunction, neuron loss and degeneration. Even so, the number of drugs that can successfully improve symptoms or delay the progression of the disease remains very limited. However, multi-drug combinations may provide a new avenue for drug therapy for AD. In addition, early diagnosis of AD and timely initiation of treatment may allow drugs that act on the early pathological processes of AD to help improve the symptoms and prevent the progression of the condition.
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This study was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (No. 2016YFC1305800), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31771114 and No. 31929002), the Innovative Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81721005), and the Academic Frontier Youth Team Project to Xiao-chuan WANG from Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
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Zhu, Cc., Fu, Sy., Chen, Yx. et al. Advances in Drug Therapy for Alzheimer’s Disease. CURR MED SCI 40, 999–1008 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11596-020-2281-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11596-020-2281-2