New Alzheimer's Disease Drugs Have Deadly Risks—With Some Patients Dying

New Alzheimer's disease drugs can greatly help dementia patients.

But, did you know that these drugs also have deadly risks?

As of writing, new Alzheimer's disease treatments are in the form of anti-amyloid therapies.

These therapies are antibodies designed to target a protein called amyloid beta, which accumulates into plaques in the brains of Alzheimer's patients.

Because of their efficiency, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decided to give a preliminary form of authorization to the dementia treatment's aducanumab version.

However, many health experts said that there was no reason to think that this Alzheimer's disease drug would help patients.

New Alzheimer's Disease Drugs Have Deadly Risks

According to The Wired's latest report, FDA gave accelerated approval to a new anti-amyloid drug called "lecanemab" in January 2022.

In the Phase III trial of lecanemab, the drug was able to slow cognitive decline based on the CDR (Clinical Dementia Rating) scale.

However, health experts also discovered that this Alzheimer's disease treatment also has deadly risks.

Some of the patients who took the lecanemab died. Researchers stated it will still depend on how much patients value a life with Alzheimer's if the drug is worth intaking.

Among the risks that these Alzheimer's disease treatment poses are bleeding of the brain and swelling of the brain.

New Alzheimer's Treatment Being Developed

Aside from anti-amyloid therapy, health experts are also creating new treatments to save patients from the deadly Alzheimer's disease.

One of the latest technologies they are taking advantage of is artificial intelligence.

Fox News reported that some health researchers use AI to understand dementia disease, as well as identify drug targets.

They conducted this experiment in the study at the University of Arizona College of Medicine.

"This is not studying one gene by one gene - it's 6,000 targets all at the same time, which will significantly accelerate drug development and discovery," said Dr. Rui Chang, the leading author of the study.

If you want to learn more about the use of AI in Alzheimer's disease treatment, you can click this link.

AI and anti-amyloid therapies are not the only new Alzheimer's disease treatments.

Previously, we reported about the brain-reading headphones, which are expected to detect Alzheimer's disease, as well as Parkinson's disease.

Because more and more dementia treatments are appearing, top health experts believe that an official Alzheimer's disease treatment could arrive as early as 2040.

For more news updates about Alzheimer's and other similar health conditions, always keep your tabs open here TechTimes.