Nasal insulin helps memory in Alzheimer's

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Insulin Nasal Spray May Help Treat Alzheimer's

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Study Shows Insulin Spray Linked With Improvement in Memory of Alzheimer's

Patients

By Salynn Boyles

WebMD Health News

Reviewed By J. , MD

July 14, 2010 -- A unique treatment approach that involved twice-daily, nasally

delivered insulin is showing early promise for boosting memory in patients with

Alzheimer's disease.

In a four-month study, patients with Alzheimer's and mild cognitive impairment

treated with a lower dose of an insulin nasal spray tended to score better on

memory tests than patients who were not treated with insulin.

At the higher insulin dose given, patients showed improvement in daily

functioning, compared to patients treated with a placebo spray, but no

difference was seen in cognition.

The study included just over 100 patients, but researchers are in the planning

stages of a larger and longer intranasal insulin study in patients with

Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment, which often progresses to

Alzheimer's.

The pilot study was reported in Honolulu at the International Conference on

Alzheimer's Disease 2010.

" Four months is rather short for a treatment study, " study researcher Suzanne

Craft, PhD, of the Veteran's Administration Puget Sound, tells WebMD. " But if

longer studies show this to be a safe and beneficial treatment, I could see it

being something that patients might want to try. "

The Brain Needs Insulin

Craft first began studying the impact of insulin on memory more than a decade

ago.

She explains that brain cells use sugar for energy, but the brain cannot make

insulin or store it. The efficiency of getting energy from the rest of the body

to the brain is a critical component of the brain's ability to function.

It is now recognized that patients with Alzheimer's disease have reduced

brain-insulin signaling as well as lower levels of insulin in the spinal fluid.

Craft and colleagues hypothesized that restoring normal insulin function to the

brain might benefit patients with memory declines.

In the newly reported study, 109 patients with Alzheimer's disease or mild

cognitive impairment were treated with either 20 international units (IU) or 40

IU of intranasal insulin daily or placebo.

Over the next four months, most placebo-treated patients showed declines in

cognitive functioning, while most insulin-treated patients did not, Craft says.

Few side effects other than runny nose and occasional feelings of

lightheadedness were reported in the insulin-treated patients.

The researchers also conducted lumbar punctures on 23 patients at the beginning

of the study and following treatment to look for abnormal proteins associated

with Alzheimer's disease in the spinal fluid.

They found lower levels of some of these proteins in the fluid of

insulin-treated patients who also had improved memory and functional status

scores.

Second Opinion

Alzheimer's Association Chief Medical and Scientific Officer Thies, PhD,

calls the early work interesting, but he adds that much more research is needed

to establish the safety and effectiveness of the approach.

" I don't know that intranasal insulin will ever become a practical treatment for

large numbers of people, " he says. " The value of this research may be in

identifying a new pathway for potential treatments. "

Thies adds that new treatments are urgently needed.

" There is a lot of Alzheimer's disease now, and there is going to be a lot more

by the middle of this century, " he says. " If we don't find better ways of

dealing with this disease it will bankrupt our health care system. "

SOURCES:

International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease 2010, Honolulu, July 10-15,

2010.

Suzanne Craft, PhD, Veteran's Administration Puget Sound; professor of

psychiatry, University of Washington, Seattle.

Thies, PhD, chief medical and scientific officer, Alzheimer's

Association.

News release, Alzheimer's Association.

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