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Asked by candybell101 to Amy, Karen, Sarah, Vijay, Will on 8 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by mickey, mariannaxox.
Question: are you close to finding a cure for Alzheimer's disease?
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Amy Birch answered on 8 Jun 2012:
Hi candybell101. This is a question I get all the time, but sadly no, we are not close to finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease yet. This is because it is a very complicated disease that can have many different causes. Because we don’t know what all the causes are, it is difficult to start to look for a cure. There are lots and lots of scientists working on this at the moment, and there is some promising drug trials happening in America.
From my own work, I have found that if you keep mentally and physically active (for example doing lots of crosswords, keeping fit and socialising lots), then you can reduce the chance that you may get Alzheimer’s when you get older.
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Karen Reed answered on 15 Jun 2012:
Hiya candybell – Its not an area I work with but as well as some of the drug trials happening that Amy mentioned, I know there is great interest in the field known as stem cell therapy. Stem cells are special cells in the body that can make any of the different cell types needed to make a human being. The idea is you’d graft in some of these stem cells into the damaged area’s of the brain and they are then able to grow into funcioning brain cells to replace the ones that were damaged due to the alzheimers disease. But this research is still in its really early stages so I’m afraid the answer to your question is no… we’re not that close to a cure.
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