Improve Short-term Memory In Alzheimer's Disease
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Kurve Technology Inc, a leader in nasal drug delivery devices, today announced the delivery of insulin by the ViaNase electronic atomizer significantly improved memory in patients with Alzheimer's Disease (AD) or Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). In a recent study presented at the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease by investigators from the Veterans Affairs (VA) Puget Sound Health Care System in Seattle, Washington and the University of Washington School of Medicine, ViaNase intranasally delivered insulin or placebo to twenty four study participants. Treatment was well-tolerated, with no serious adverse events or changes in plasma glucose or insulin levels. Compared with the placebo-treated group, the insulin-treated group showed enhanced ability to retain verbal information after a delay. Although memory savings scores were no different between the two groups at baseline, they were significantly higher in the insulin-treated group at day 21. During the six month trial, ViaNase delivered over 1,000 doses without a single failure. Patients ranged in age from 65-95 years. A longer-term trial will begin in October. "Intranasal insulin administration improved memory by about 20%," said VA Principal Investigator and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Suzanne Craft, PhD. "This degree of memory improvement can be considered clinically significant. " Recent evidence suggests that disorders of insulin metabolism, such as insulin resistance and diabetes, increase the risk for developing AD. According to the Alzheimer's Association ( http://www.alz.org/ ), an estimated 4.5 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease - a number expected to increase to 11 -16 million by 2050. Finding a treatment that delays onset by five years could reduce the number of individuals with Alzheimer's disease by nearly 50 percent after 50 years. "The ViaNase electronic atomizer performed flawlessly throughout the duration of the clinical trial period. In addition to improvement in daily function and memory, study participants and their caregivers found the device easy to use and extremely reliable," said Kurve Technology's CEO Marc Giroux.