There are a few
diseases that have puzzled medical researchers for long and one of them is
Alzheimer’s Disease. According to conservative estimates, more than 36 million
people across the globe suffer from this disease. As a matter of fact, there is
growing concern about this disease which tends to mostly affect elderly people
given that populations of many countries are aging rapidly. This is sure to put
a lot of pressure on public health care systems in many countries while also
resulting in societal problems unless a vaccine or a cure for it can be found.
According to widely
famed scientist and biomedical researcher Dr.Micheal Mullen, one of the biggest problems is that this disease does not
get the attention that it deserves even though it poses huge problems. As
President and CEO of the Roskamp Institute which is located in Sarasota
Florida, he leads a team of dedicated researchers who have been at the
forefront of the research to understand this disease. He certainly knows what
he is talking about when he says that the disease needs to be understood
better. Dr. Mullen, a physician trained in London, is also a renowned
geneticist who has published many papers on Alzheimer’s and other long term
degenerative diseases that affect the brain.
One of the biggest
problems faced by Alzheimer’s researchers is the serious lack of funding. This
has got something to do with the fact that trials for this disease take
inordinately long. It is an unfortunate fact that the cost of the trials goes
up in direct proportion to the time it takes. In fact, there are at least a
hundred trails for cancer for every trial conducted for Alzheimer's disease.
Besides, clinical trials for this disease are not easy to conduct.
Another factor to be
considered is that most research on Alzheimer’s focuses on the levels of a
protein called Amyloid in late stage Alzheimer’s patients. It is the accumulation
of this protein in the brain which is known to cause the onset of the disease.
However, since very little research studies its levels at the early stages or
even before the onset of the disease, there is still very little understanding
of the disease. Michael Mullan has maintained that this small but
significant protein merits further study as do other early markers of
Alzheimer’s disease.
There is absolutely no
doubt about the fact that the Alzheimer’s research community is woefully
underfunded. It is only when it gets government and private funding in the
required quantum that researchers will be able to get plenty of breakthroughs
about this disease. In the meanwhile, physicians and researchers alike eagerly
await the results of studies conducted at places like the Roskamp Institute.
