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American Morning

Paging Dr. Gupta: Alzheimer's Vaccine

Aired July 29, 2003 - 08:45   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Health news now. Four million Americans suffer from Alzheimer's, and now researchers have new hope for the development a safe and effective vaccine to treat it would be substantial if indeed it goes the way some think it may.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is back here in our "House Call" here in New York.

Nice to see you.

This would be big stuff?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It really would. And obviously people have been focused, pinning their hopes on a vaccine, much more so than a treatment, even for some time. Four million, the number you mentioned, Bill, 360,000 new cases a year. Those numbers are increasing with Alzheimer's. Our population is aging, more and more people are older and they're living longer. So Alzheimer's a big concern.

The vaccine that you're speaking about and 1792, numbers and letter, that's how medications are often named, at least early on. You can take a look at some of the vaccine studies in the past. You have their promising mice studies from the past.

But also, one of the big things about this particular vaccine is it took some time before they actually were able to prove that this thing was working and not causing any problem. In fact, in one of the later stages of trials in this particular vaccine, they found 15 out of the 360 people that were actually in the trial developed significant brain inflammation.

Big problem here, Bill, when you're talking about vaccine, you are talking from about preventing diseases, they have to be absolutely safe. In this case, it necessarily wasn't. Let me show you really quick, what happens with Alzheimer's disease. It's important to take a look at this. You have the brain, obviously.

What happens, typically is you have these various enzymes in the brain, normal enzymes, that actually dissect little pieces of rods. Those are proteins. Those proteins start to build up with time. This is a little science-y, but important; when you get these little clumps, as you see there. When they look at autopsies, they actually have those clumps in their brains, that causes brain cell death.

This vaccine would actually be designed to try and prevent that from happening. You give them the vaccine, you stimulate an immune response. That increases something known as antibodies in the brain. That fights off Alzheimer's in the brain, possibly fighting off those clumps.

HEMMER: Absent of vaccine, put that aside for a second, how is Alzheimer's treated now?

GUPTA: Really important point, because the way it's treated is really to treat the symptoms. We're not talking about stopping the progression of the disease and certainly not about halting the progression of the disease. There are some medications out there. If you have Alzheimer's, you know somebody who has Alzheimer's, you've heard of these medications. You can take a look at the list there -- Reminyl, Aricept, Exelon and Cognex. Those are all some of the common medications.

HEMMER: Oftentimes, we talk about the topic, and I think it's important to remind people, warning signs -- if you think you may be a victim, what do you look out for?

GUPTA: That's right. The thing about the diseases is that it is vague. And I think we try not to scare people on this program, and certainly there are a lot of people who have some memory lapses from time to time. That probably is not going to be Alzheimer's. There are some significant memory loss, I should say there, to the point where it interferes with your activities of daily living, you just can't conduct the way that you live your life, problems with language, disorientation to time and place, people forgetting where they are, forgetting where they're going sometimes if they're driving a car. It's really significant in terms of how it impacts your activities.

HEMMER: Can you lower your risk?

GUPTA: Yes, there have been all sorts of studies on that as well. High-fat diet -- we talked about that so much -- it appears to have a role in Alzheimer's as well. The higher the fat in your diet, probably the higher risk of Alzheimer's. That's one of the big known ones for sure.

HEMMER: Good to know. And good to see you. Welcome back to Gotham. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired July 29, 2003 - 08:45   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Health news now. Four million Americans suffer from Alzheimer's, and now researchers have new hope for the development a safe and effective vaccine to treat it would be substantial if indeed it goes the way some think it may.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is back here in our "House Call" here in New York.

Nice to see you.

This would be big stuff?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It really would. And obviously people have been focused, pinning their hopes on a vaccine, much more so than a treatment, even for some time. Four million, the number you mentioned, Bill, 360,000 new cases a year. Those numbers are increasing with Alzheimer's. Our population is aging, more and more people are older and they're living longer. So Alzheimer's a big concern.

The vaccine that you're speaking about and 1792, numbers and letter, that's how medications are often named, at least early on. You can take a look at some of the vaccine studies in the past. You have their promising mice studies from the past.

But also, one of the big things about this particular vaccine is it took some time before they actually were able to prove that this thing was working and not causing any problem. In fact, in one of the later stages of trials in this particular vaccine, they found 15 out of the 360 people that were actually in the trial developed significant brain inflammation.

Big problem here, Bill, when you're talking about vaccine, you are talking from about preventing diseases, they have to be absolutely safe. In this case, it necessarily wasn't. Let me show you really quick, what happens with Alzheimer's disease. It's important to take a look at this. You have the brain, obviously.

What happens, typically is you have these various enzymes in the brain, normal enzymes, that actually dissect little pieces of rods. Those are proteins. Those proteins start to build up with time. This is a little science-y, but important; when you get these little clumps, as you see there. When they look at autopsies, they actually have those clumps in their brains, that causes brain cell death.

This vaccine would actually be designed to try and prevent that from happening. You give them the vaccine, you stimulate an immune response. That increases something known as antibodies in the brain. That fights off Alzheimer's in the brain, possibly fighting off those clumps.

HEMMER: Absent of vaccine, put that aside for a second, how is Alzheimer's treated now?

GUPTA: Really important point, because the way it's treated is really to treat the symptoms. We're not talking about stopping the progression of the disease and certainly not about halting the progression of the disease. There are some medications out there. If you have Alzheimer's, you know somebody who has Alzheimer's, you've heard of these medications. You can take a look at the list there -- Reminyl, Aricept, Exelon and Cognex. Those are all some of the common medications.

HEMMER: Oftentimes, we talk about the topic, and I think it's important to remind people, warning signs -- if you think you may be a victim, what do you look out for?

GUPTA: That's right. The thing about the diseases is that it is vague. And I think we try not to scare people on this program, and certainly there are a lot of people who have some memory lapses from time to time. That probably is not going to be Alzheimer's. There are some significant memory loss, I should say there, to the point where it interferes with your activities of daily living, you just can't conduct the way that you live your life, problems with language, disorientation to time and place, people forgetting where they are, forgetting where they're going sometimes if they're driving a car. It's really significant in terms of how it impacts your activities.

HEMMER: Can you lower your risk?

GUPTA: Yes, there have been all sorts of studies on that as well. High-fat diet -- we talked about that so much -- it appears to have a role in Alzheimer's as well. The higher the fat in your diet, probably the higher risk of Alzheimer's. That's one of the big known ones for sure.

HEMMER: Good to know. And good to see you. Welcome back to Gotham. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com