New Lilly Alzheimer’s med neither a breakthrough nor a cure
It may be the dirtiest trick yet played on Alzheimer’s victims and their loved ones.
At a major medical conference last week, executives from Eli Lilly stood up and claimed they had a miracle pill that may finally stop Alzheimer’s disease in its tracks. Some newspapers even reported it as an “Alzheimer’s breakthrough.”
But this drug is no breakthrough, and certainly no cure.
Because what we might be seeing instead is a sinister plan for Eli Lilly to make billions selling a failed med called solanezumab (sola) that’s already shown it won’t help anyone. And the company may have found a sneaky way to get sola approved without ever having to prove it works.
It’s dealing with some of the worst sales numbers it’s seen in seven years. And some of its blockbuster drugs like Prozac have gone generic.
But instead of using its research dollars to develop medications that might change… or even save… someone’s life, the company seems to be looking for a back door to get a disastrous, failed Alzheimer’s drug into the hands of millions of people.
You see, sola is supposed to stop the amyloid plaques that may cause Alzheimer’s from forming in your brain.
But sola works a lot better in theory than it does in real life. During an 18-month trial called EXPEDITION, sola didn’t do a darned thing to help Alzheimer’s patients.
It didn’t improve their memories… it didn’t help them think better… and it didn’t make them any better at performing daily tasks.
Sola was such a bust that Eli Lilly even withdrew its application from the Big Pharma-friendly FDA. The same FDA that’s rubber stamping new meds at a record pace.
But with millions of research dollars invested, Eli Lilly wasn’t ready to abandon ship. Its scientists holed up in a hidden room at headquarters called “The Cave” looking for any good news… any glimmer of hope… they could spin about sola.
Now they’re claiming that sola may be able to prevent Alzheimer’s if you start it early enough — as in before you even have any symptoms of the disease.
Experts accused Eli Lilly of using “generous statistical methods” to come up with the good news. And, in fact, all the EXPEDITION patients went downhill — no matter how early they started sola.
But, of course, that’s the entire evil genius behind Eli Lilly’s plan. Instead of trying to help Alzheimer’s patients, the company can make a fortune getting millions of healthy people popping sola daily… maybe even for decades… as a way to prevent the disease.
If you never get Alzheimer’s — and even most seniors over 80 don’t — you’ll swear the drug worked. And if you do develop Alzheimer’s, Eli Lilly and the FDA will just chalk that up to an “acceptable failure rate.” Either way, the company gets richer while the rest of us never have a clue whether the drug is doing anything.
Worse still, once sola is on the market as an Alzheimer’s prevention drug, you can bet thousands of docs will be prescribing it off-label to folks who already have the disease. And we know from the previous clinical trials that these patients won’t be helped one bit.
The good news is that there are plenty of simple things you can do to ward off Alzheimer’s and boost your brain power — all without putting a penny in Eli Lilly’s greedy pockets. Things like:
- Supplementing with vitamin D, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), and vinpocetine. A UCLA study proves that vitamin D and DHA can slash your risk of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. And vinpocetine, a supplement derived from the seeds of the periwinkle plant, can improve blood flow to the brain and be a potent memory enhancer.
- Ditching processed foods that contain brain-damaging additives, such as MSG, fructose and aspartame.
- Consuming more medium-chain fatty acids, like the kind you find in coconut oil and real, natural butter. Danish researchers discovered that these fatty acids have a remarkable ability to protect your brain.
Sources:
“Eli Lilly offers evidence of twice-failed solanezumab’s impact on Alzheimer’s” John Carroll, July 22, 2015, FierceBiotech, fiercebiotech.com
“Deep in ‘Cave,’ Lilly CEO decided Alzheimer’s drug’s fate” June 26, 2015, Bloomberg News, ibj.com
“Solanezumab analysis positive, but clinical benefits unclear” Kristina Fiore, July 22, 2015, MedPage Today, medpagetoday.com
