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Researchers report some success with nutrient combination for mild Alzheimer's

E-mail | Print | Comments () Posted by Elizabeth Cooney January 7, 2010 07:29 PM

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People with mild Alzheimer's disease who drank a cocktail of nutrients developed at MIT improved their memory at a higher rate than people who drank a mixture without the nutrients, according to a small, short-term study funded by the company that makes the nutrient drink. But patients given the nutrients did not improve on several other measures of mental functioning.

Writing in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia, Dr. Richard J. Wurtman of MIT and his co-authors say their proof-of-concept trial is the first to test whether a multi-nutrient drink can help people with mild Alzheimer's. The theory is based on Wurtman's discovery in laboratory animals that certain nutrients promote the growth of connections between brain cells. People with Alzheimer's don't make as many of these brain connections, called synapses, as healthy people, leading to problems with memory and understanding information.

Wurtman's previous work showed that giving laboratory animals uridine, choline, and omega-3 fatty acids -- compounds found in breast milk and sometimes added to foods -- promotes the growth of dendritic spines on the membranes of nerve cells. These spines form synapses when they contact other nerve cells.

To test the nutrient combination in people, the researchers recruited 225 people who had mild Alzheimer's disease but were not taking dementia medications. Half of the participants, who came from 29 treatment centers in five European countries, were randomly assigned to drink the supplement once a day for 12 weeks and half were given a similar drink without the nutrient combination. Their memory, cognition, and function were tested at the beginning and the end of the trial.

After 12 weeks, 40 percent of the people who were given the nutrient drink performed better on the memory test, which asked them to recall words after a delay. Among the placebo group, 25 percent improved on the verbal memory test. Neither group did better on several tests of orientation, movement, or spatial memory.

Dr. Robert Green, co-director of the Alzheimer's Disease clinical and research program at Boston University School of Medicine, said the positive outcome for only one test gave him pause. He was not involved in the study.

"This paper was well designed and well reported," he said in an interview. "But the relatively small number of patients, the short time, and the results that found one statistically significant outcome measure out of six certainly leads me to be cautious about jumping up and down."

Wurtman said improving only on the verbal memory test may be related to the mild stage of Alzheimer's among the study's subjects.

"The earliest symptoms in Alzheimer's tend to be cognitive symptoms. You forget a word or you tell the same joke three times," he said in an interview. "As the disease progresses, people lose orientation. They don't know where they are or what time of day it is, they get motor deficits, they don't know how to hold a fork."

Larger trials, now recruiting patients in the United States and elsewhere, will look at the nutrient combination in more people and for a longer period of time, Wurtman said. They will also use brain imaging to measure any changes.

Green said larger trials can overturn the promise of smaller trials. He was the lead author of a study published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association that reported on a large phase 3 trial of a drug that targeted enzymes implicated in forming the amyloid tangles that cause Alzheimer's symptom. The drug did not work despite success in earlier phases, a disappointment that has happened in other trials of Alzheimer's treatments.

"I'd love this to be true" about the nutrient combination, Green said. "I'd love it if a mixture of vitamins [could] somehow nurture your neurons and keep them from degenerating, but I think most of us have a sense the disease is sort of more malevolent."

MIT holds the patent on the combination of the three compounds, and a subsidiary of the French company Danone, known as Dannon in the United States, has licensed the patent. The study was designed, planned, and paid for by Danone.

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White Coat Notes covers the latest from the health care industry, hospitals, doctors offices, labs, insurers, and the corridors of government. Chelsea Conaboy previously covered health care for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Write her at cconaboy@boston.com. Follow her on Twitter: @cconaboy.

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