Two Interesting Health Articles on Alzheimers

I know many of you have an interest in Alzheimer’s research and treatment because you’ve known someone with the disease. This article has an interesting take on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and its approval process for drugs. The thesis is that the FDA’s approval process is too restrictive. The result is that drugs rarely are approved for Alzheimer’s, and the secondary result is that drug companies are less likely to invest in research for new Alzheimer’s drugs because of the low probability of approval.

The second article might affect how you select a physician. A study found that among Medicare patients, those in the hospital and treated by an older physician are more likely to die within 30 days than those treated by younger physicians, even when their physical conditions were similar.

The analysis…recommends that the FDA approve new medicines that demonstrate a proven benefit on at least one therapeutic endpoint – either cognition or function. The current FDA standards require a new drug to show benefits on both proven endpoints, an unnecessarily challenging hurdle the authors say may be inhibiting investment in new Alzheimer’s treatments.