From the Daily Mail: Two drugs already approved by the FDA for cancer treatment may hold the key to reversing Alzheimer’s disease in patients, experts say.
Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) believe that letrozole, a hormone-based breast cancer drug, and irinotecan, a lung and colon cancer chemotherapy medication, can help reverse brain damage caused by the incurable neurodegenerative disease.
In an animal study, the UCSF experts found that both cancer drugs were seen to reduce brain degeneration in mice and even improve their memory and learning capacity.
Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most common forms of dementia and mostly affects adults over the age of 65. About 7million Americans live with the condition and over 100,00 die from it annually.
The disease is believed to be caused by the development of toxic amyloid proteins and/or tau proteins in the brain, which can accumulate and damage cells responsible for memory and learning.
Below is an important excerpt from the UCSF report:
The study first analyzed how Alzheimer’s disease altered gene expression, the activity of genes in a cell, in single cells in the human brain. Then, researchers looked for existing drugs that were already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and cause the opposite changes to gene expression.
They were looking specifically for drugs that would reverse the gene expression changes in neurons and in other types of brain cells called glia, all of which are damaged or altered in Alzheimer’s disease. Next, the researchers analyzed millions of electronic medical records to show that patients who took some of these drugs as part of their treatment for other conditions were less likely to get Alzheimer’s disease.
When they tested a combination of the two top drugs — both of which are cancer medications — in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s, it reduced brain degeneration in the mice, and even restored their ability to remember.
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FDA-approved cancer drugs reversed brain changes tied to Alzheimer’s and brought back memory. UCSF and @GladstoneInst researchers combined patient data with genetic analysis to fast-track a potential new treatment.https://t.co/W5onhPHjtV
— UC San Francisco (@UCSF) July 21, 2025
In middle age, dementia can be mistaken for depression. UCSF researchers found spinal fluid proteins that could lead to the first diagnostic biomarkers of frontotemporal dementia, the most common dementia under age 60. https://t.co/i3WZL5iaFw
— UC San Francisco (@UCSF) June 23, 2025
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