Cancer Drug Erases Alzheimer's Symptoms in Days

Neuroscientists at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have made a dramatic breakthrough in their efforts to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. The drug in question, Bexarotene has been approved for the treatment of cancer by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for more than a decade.

Alzheimer's Reading Room 

Gary Landreth

In the study described below, the cancer drug Bexarotene quickly and dramatically improved brain function and social ability and restored the sense of smell in mice bred with a form of Alzheimer's disease. 

Imagine this.

Within hours of taking the drug, amyloid plaques began to clear out of the mice’s brains. After three days, more than 50 percent of the Alzheimer’s plaques had disappeared, and the mice regained some of the cognitive and memory functions typically lost in Alzheimer's disease.