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Editorial
March 8, 2021

A Link Between Cardiovascular Risk Management and Alzheimer Disease Is Still Elusive

Author Affiliations
  • 1Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley
JAMA Neurol. 2021;78(5):524-526. doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2021.0083

Alzheimer disease (AD) is the sixth leading cause of death in the US, but existing treatments provide only a modest improvement in symptoms. To our knowledge, no approved treatment exists that improves the course of disease or underlying pathology. Research on disease-modifying AD treatments has proven to be extremely challenging, with a number of major recent clinical trials of drug therapies resulting in negative or ambivalent findings.1,2 While many alternative ideas for developing a treatment for AD are being pursued, 2 key strategies have emerged: initiating interventions earlier in the course of disease in individuals who are at risk but unimpaired and identifying targets beyond abnormal amyloid and tau proteins, the pathology that defines AD.

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