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Biotech / Medical : Univec (UNVC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Courtney Willfore who wrote (71)	11/2/1997 11:52:00 PM
From: r. peter Dale	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 181

<OFF TOPIC> Courtney - I have just a moment. Your question about estrogen and Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is good because it epitomizes the rapid simplification that biotech mavens force onto diseases so as have it apply to their company. Some quick points for now: 1. I assume the underlying premise is that AD is more prevalent in women. When the proper statistical analyses are applied, it ain't necessarily so (Aksari P. and G. Stoppe: Fortschr Neurol Psychiatr 1996 Nov;64(11):425-432). The strongest genetic risk factor is the relative expression of allele 4 of apolipoprotein E while the highest phenotypic risk component is lack of education. 2. There have been a few suggestive findings indicating estrogen can improve memory performance in afflicted females [see the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA); Neurology 1997 Jun;48(6): 1517-1521] - and there is evidence estrogen can influence cholinergic cell performance - but this data is weak and controversial. The evidence that estrogen significantly decreases cardiovascular disease and osteoporotic morbidity and mortality in postmenopausal women is known. The lack of large, randomized, controlled prospective studies for estrogen's role in AD allows only those with self-fulfilling delusions to draw conclusions 3. There is a growing body of evidence that non-steroidal antiinflammatory (NSAID) drugs can play a role in attenuating the onset of neurodegenerative disease. This class may prove to be significantly more worthwhile pursuing since estrogen (or estrogenic compounds) continue to carry substantial undesirable side effects. Best wishes, Peter