The Remarkable Potential Human and Economic Value of Antidepressants in Preventing, Arresting and Alleviating Alzheimer’s Disease: A MiniReview

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BIOCHEMICAL AND PHARMACOLOGICAL

INTERPRETATIONS

As depression predisposes to Alzheimer’s disease, it is not surprising that antidepressants are capable of preventing, alleviating and arresting the disorder.

Excessive synthesis of prostaglandin E2 generates amyloid, and such non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs as aspirin and ibuprofen, as well as antidepressants, inhibit prostaglandin E2. Two epidemiological studies have shown that ibuprofen (Motrin), that inhibit prostaglandin E2, can delay the onset of Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative disorder closely related to Alzheimer’s.

Antidepressants offer great advantages, and few disadvantages, in addressing Alzheimer’s,  recently referred to as “the coming tsunami,” but you would not think so, given the lack of enthusiasm of Alzheimer’s organizations  and health policy makers, when notified of this innovation.

One suspects that conflicts of interest, and the low cost of generic antidepressants, are the root causes of the neglect.

 

 

The right to the highest attainable standard of health is codified in numerous legally binding international and regional human rights treaties. The right, or other health-related rights, is also enshrined in over 100 constitutions worldwide.

Many additional references in Pubmed.

For educational purposes only.

 

 

About the Author

Julian Lieb, M.D is a retired Yale medical school professor, and author or coauthor of forty -eight articles and eleven books. With D Jablow Hershman as first author, Dr Lieb coauthored: “Manic Depression and Creativity” and “A Brotherhood of Tyrants: Manic Depression and Absolute Power.” In these volumes, the authors showed that manic- depressive disorder is paradoxical, in gifting society with many creative geniuses, and inflicting many of its great destroyers.