Finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease has been an ongoing mission for the medical community.
A recent study by Boyce Thompson Institute and John Hopkins University claimed that salicylic acid, found in aspirin, could help stop cell death; which is one of the causes of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.
"It's interesting,” neurologist, Dr. John Bertelson said. “It suggested that aspirin might bind to a chemical that, if you can prevent that chemical from getting into the cell, it might at least prevent that chemical from causing or contributing to the death of that cell."
You could buy aspirin over-the-counter. It is mostly used as a pain reliever and blood thinner.
"We certainly know that aspirin, even a low dose of aspirin, is very helpful at reducing the chance that someone has a future stroke or a warning stroke or a TIA or even a larger stroke; so aspirin has been shown to be very helpful," Bertelson said.
While this all sounds promising, Dr. Bertelson said it’s too soon to say that aspirin can help stop Alzheimer’s. But the study proved that there is progress being made on the search for a cure.
"I hate to say it's just around the corner because we've been burned before,” he said. “But I am optimistic that we'll get to the point that we'll find that. If not, a way to reverse the disease, reverse the damage, reverse the symptoms, but at least I hope we can someday find a way to halt the disease in its tracks."
Alzheimer's disease is the 6th leading cause of death in the U.S.