Popular blood pressure medication may reduce Alzheimer’s symptoms

A popular blood pressure drug has once again been shown to reduce Alzheimer’s-like symptoms in mice, but this time the drug is from a class of drugs not previously identified with Alzheimer’s.

The discovery of valsartan, (marketed as Diovan in the US) and its benefits grew out of a study of 55 drugs used to treat high blood pressure conducted at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. Of the nearly five dozen drugs screened, Diovan stood out, said Dr Guilo Maria Pasinetti, a Mount Sinai professor of psychiatry and neuroscience and the study’s author. The findings were published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Specifically, valsartan disrupted the formation of clumps of the protein beta-amyloid in the brains of mice that had been genetically engineered to be susceptible to an Alzheimer’s-like disease, Dr Pasinetti said. Beta-amyloid deposits are a leading characteristic of Alzheimer’s in humans.

Dr Pasinetti said one of the interesting findings regarding valsartan is that it appeared to be effective with Alzheimer’s even at a much lower dose than what’s normally prescribed to the high blood pressure application.

“We also found that in this animal model, there was some kind of effect of valsartan even at doses that were threefold lower than the common equivalent doses given to patients with hypertension [high blood pressure],” he said.