Efficacy of Anti-Diabetic Medicines in the Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurologic disorder that has affected more than 36 million patients all over the world and is expected to rise up to 100 million till 2050. AD cost has been calculated more than 600 million dollars worldwide during 2010. There are approximately 400000 AD cases in Iran. Indeed AD is a neuroendocrine disorder and named Type 3 diabetes mellitus (T3DM) and its reason is some insufficiency in insulin and IGF signaling pathway, which consist of impairments in synthesis of insulin and Insulin-like growth factor (IGF) in the brain. T3DM has large overlap with Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) and particularly with Type 3 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) from the point of view in both biochemical abnormalities aspects as well as its effects on the brain. Recently some research are published which show cognitive improvement in patients of AD that were treated with intranasal insulin and other anti-diabetic medicines.