- Estrogen may increase cognitive ability, specifically short-term memory and the capacity to learn new tasks. Richard Mayeux, M.D., a professor at Columbia University's School of Public Health, and his colleagues studied over 1,000 women age 70 and up. Those who had taken estrogen for just a year were significantly less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease than women who had never taken the hormone. Dr. Mayeux estimates that women who take estrogen for a decade may reduce their risk for the illness by about 40 percent. Researchers theorize that estrogen may stimulate neurons to grow more branches. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is launching a study on the impact of estrogen on Alzheimer's disease at 38 medical centers across the country. Eight thousand healthy women who are 65 years old or older and who are already taking estrogen will be studied.
- Anti-inflammatory drugs may be just as promising as estrogen when it comes to warding off Alzheimer's disease. According to Khachaturian, "our body's reaction to inflammation can cause cells to die." The role of inflammation was first recognized when scientists discovered that arthritis sufferers—who usually take anti-inflammatory drugs—have lower rates of Alzheimer's disease than those who don't take drugs. A review of 17 studies by researchers at the University of British Columbia found that people taking anti-inflammatory drugs reduced their risk of Alzheimer's disease by nearly half. Both steroids and nonsteroidal drugs, like aspirin and ibuprofen, were included in this review. The National Institute on Aging is also studying the effect of the powerful anti-inflammatory drug prednisone on Alzheimer's disease. And two other drugs—the gout medication colchicine and the antimalarial drug chloroquine—are under consideration to be studied, according to neurologist Douglas Galasko, M.D., of the San Diego Veterans Administration Medical Center at the University of California.
- Nicotine, which mimics some of the effects of acetylcholine, a major neurotransmitter, may enhance brain function. "Acetylcholine is quite important for cognitive function and memory," notes Edward Levin, Ph.D., of the NeuroBehavioral Research Laboratory at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. "Several studies have shown that nicotine will improve cognitive performance in Alzheimer's disease patients," Levin says, adding that it also seems to be effective in treating adults with attention-deficit disorder. Additionally, smokers have lower rates of Alzheimer's disease, though Levin is quick to assert that smoking's health hazards far outweigh its benefits as an antidote to failing memory.
- Studies looking into the effects of 20 new "cognition enhancing" drugs on humans began in 1995. According to the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, a nonprofit association of neuroscientists, many of these drugs increase the action of acetylcholine or mimic its effect.
- A class of drugs, called ampakines, may immediately enhance our ability to learn or create new memories. Developed by Gary Lynch, Ph.D., a neuroscientist at the University of California at Irvine, the safety of these drugs has been tested in humans in a small pilot study with no side effects so far. But much research on their safety and efficacy remains to be done.
- An antibody that enhances learning has been found. "When we put this molecule into the brains of rabbits they learned more quickly," says Jan Leestma, M.D., of the discovery he and his colleagues at the Chicago Institute of Neurosurgery and Neuroresearch made.
At The Corner Store: Vitamins and Nutrients
It's not just scientists who are catching anti-aging fever. Walk into any health food store, and you'll find nutritional formulas—with names like Brainstorm and Smart ALEC—that claim to sharpen mental ability. The book Smart Drugs & Nutrients, by Ward Dean, M.D., and John Morgenthaler, was self-published in 1990 and has sold over 120,000 copies worldwide. It has also spawned an underground network of people tweaking their own brain chemistry with nutrients and drugs—the latter sometimes obtained from Europe and Mexico. Sales of ginkgo—an extract from the leaves of the 200-million-year-old ginkgo tree, which has been shown in published studies to increase oxygen in the brain and ameliorate symptoms of Alzheimer's disease—jumped up by 22 percent within six months in 1996, according to Paddy Spence, president of SPINS, a San Francisco-based market research firm.
