Paradigm Shift in Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease: Zinc Therapy Now a Conscientious Choice for Care of Individual Patients

Breakthrough in treatment of Alzheimer's disease with a shift from irrational dangerous chelation therapy to rational safe evidence based oral zinc therapy. Evidence based medicine: After synthesizing the best available clinical evidence I conclude that oral zinc therapy is a conscientious choice for treatment of free copper toxicosis in individual patients with Alzheimer's disease. Hypothesis 1: Age related free copper toxicosis is a causal factor in pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease. There are 2 neurodegenerative diseases with abnormalities in copper metabolism: (a) the juvenile form with degeneration in the basal ganglia (Wilson's disease) and (b) the age related form with cortical neurodegeneration (Alzheimer's disease). Initially the hypothesis has been that neurodegeneration was caused by accumulation of copper in the brain but later experiences with treatment of Wilson's disease led to the conviction that free plasma copper is the toxic form of copper: it catalyzes amyloid formation thereby generating oxidative stress, free radicals and degeneration of cortical neurons. Hypothesis 2: Oral zinc therapy is an effective and safe treatment of free copper toxicosis in Alzheimer's disease. Proposed dosage: 50 mg elementary zinc/day. Warning: Chelation therapy is irrational and dangerous in treatment of copper toxicosis in Alzheimer's disease

Zinc Therapy in Early Alzheimer’s Disease: Safety and Potential Therapeutic Efficacy

Zinc therapy is normally utilized for treatment of Wilson disease (WD), an inherited condition that is characterized by increased levels of non-ceruloplasmin bound (‘free’) copper in serum and urine. A subset of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) or its prodromal form, known as Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), fail to maintain a normal copper metabolic balance and exhibit higher than normal values of non-ceruloplasmin copper. Zinc’s action mechanism involves the induction of intestinal cell metallothionein, which blocks copper absorption from the intestinal tract, thus restoring physiological levels of non-ceruloplasmin copper in the body. On this basis, it is employed in WD. Zinc therapy has shown potential beneficial effects in preliminary AD clinical trials, even though the studies have missed their primary endpoints, since they have study design and other important weaknesses. Nevertheless, in the studied AD patients, zinc effectively decreased non-ceruloplasmin copper levels and showed potential for improved cognitive performances with no major side effects. This review discusses zinc therapy safety and the potential therapeutic effects that might be expected on a subset of individuals showing both cognitive complaints and signs of copper imbalance