An experimental cholesterol fighter acts like Drano in the brains of mice with a model of Alzheimer’s disease, dramatically cutting the amount of brain-clogging amyloid plaque.

The finding, by a team of Austrian and American researchers including Dora Kovacs at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, suggests that similar drugs already slated for human use as cholesterol fighters could also find use as Alzheimer’s treatments.



The experimental drug is called CP-113,818. It works by mimicking a cholesterol molecule that an enzyme called acyl-coenzyme A: cholesterol acyltransferase (ACAT) converts into a form of cholesterol. This jams the enzyme and prevents it from processing cholesterol.



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