THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Sonoma County neurologist Dr. Allan Bernstein envisions a day when Alzheimer’s disease can be treated as successfully as heart disease or even cancer. That day is far off, he said, but we’re getting closer.
Bernstein, who has been involved in Alzheimer’s research for nearly 25 years, said part of the problem is that up until now, most trials of Alzheimer’s drugs have been conducted on people with mild to severe cognitive impairment. Not surprisingly, recent studies of Alzheimer’s drugs have at best shown only a moderate slowing of cognitive decline.
But Bernstein has high hopes for the latest round of clinical trials of Alzheimer’s drugs, particularly Eli Lilly’s donanemab. Last month, the pharmaceutical company published a study that found the drug significantly slowed the progression of memory and thinking problems in people with very early stages of Alzheimer’s symptoms.
Bernstein is one of only a handful of researchers in the Bay Area currently conducting trials on donanemab. Now he is participating in a new Eli Lilly study, “Trailblazer 3,” that examines the drug’s effects on “normal people” — those without any Alzheimer’s symptoms at all, with the goal of preventing onset of the disease, or to dramatically delay it as much as possible.