A reply was sent back to Doctor Julian Lieb from the Alzheimer’s Association regarding the potential human and economic value of antidepressants in preventing, arresting and alleviating Alzheimer’s Disease. The reply shown below dismisses the possibility of the effectiveness of antidepressants in helping treat Alzheimer’s as supposedly “such data are not available regarding antidepressants as a method for preventing or stopping the progression of Alzheimer’s” despite the existence of Pubmed and other esteemed studies that point to antidepressants being helpful.

Dr. Lieb –

 

Thank you for your e-mail to the Alzheimer’s Association. The Alzheimer’s Association welcomes new ideas for Alzheimer therapies and potential ways to prevent this devastating disease.

 

The vast majority of clinical trials involving antidepressants and Alzheimer’s examine the drugs as a method for improving depression and other behavioral symptoms that may arise in Alzheimer’s disease. The Association is committed to giving the best guidance it can on potential new therapies for Alzheimer’s. To do that responsibly, we need data published in peer-reviewed scientific journals showing that a potential new therapy is effective in a large, diverse patient population. These data need to have been obtained through the three-phase clinical trials process set forth by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the data need to have been replicated.

 

To date, such data are not available regarding antidepressants as a method for preventing or stopping the progression of Alzheimer’s. Should that change and clinical trial data become available that meet the criteria above, the Association will be eager to evaluate the data and share its perspective.

Niles Frantz