A drug used to treat cancer may be a major weapon in the fight against Alzheimer's disease, according to laboratory experiments made public by U.S. specialists in the Cape Western Reserve University.

In laboratory tests with mice, bexarotene rapidly improved the general health of the brain, memory and behavior, initially suffering from cancer. Researchers claim that side effects of this drug now used only to treat some forms of skin cancer, are downright spectacular and unexpected for Alzheimer's sufferers.

However, some experts are reserved, indicating that the results obtained on laboratory rats do not always match those available to people. Researchers have successfully used bexarotene to dissolve the deposits amyloizi, toxic proteins that are deposited in large quantities in the brains of Alzheimer's sufferers. In just 6 hours after taking this medicine rats found that the amyloizilor already fallen by a quarter.

After 3 days of their treatment, memory and behavior of rats has improved considerably, they are again grasping to build lairs, a lost animal instinct when they were suffering.

However, Professor Derek Hill at University College London warned that: "Before this drug to receive approval for use by sufferers of Alzheimer's safe, it takes many years of studies and tests on thousands of patients before to convince us that they will not have dangerous side effects in time ".

Currently there is no treatment or drug to combat Alzheimer's.

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