The need for Alzheimer’s prevention is growing. About 7 million people in the U.S. now live with the disease, with estimates climbing to 13 million by 2050. The estimated annual cost of care for Alzheimer’s and other dementias could rise from $360 billion to almost $1 trillion over that time period, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
One class of HIV drug shows promise in preventing Alzheimer’s disease, according to an article in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association.
Scientists arrived at the finding serendipitously. While studying how a class of drugs used to treat HIV works, researchers noticed that they also impacted mechanisms involved in the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
Once the researchers made that connection, they turned to two databases. They scoured them for patients being treated with a class of HIV drugs called nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs), which prevent the HIV virus from replicating ...
