Cancer and Chemotherapy Are Associated With a Reduced Alzheimer’s Risk

Paclitaxel and doxorubicin, common chemotherapy agents, are known to interfere with the development of the abnormal protein tangles seen in Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Driver offered another theory as to why chemotherapy may be protective for the development of Alzheimer’s disease. “Alzheimer’s disease cells, when they get sick, actually try to divide, something they should never attempt to do,” she explained. “In that way, they act very much like cancer cells. There are so many similarities between Alzheimer’s disease cells and cancer cells that some people have called Alzheimer’s disease ‘the cancer of the brain.’ So in that sense you can understand how a treatment like chemotherapy might be able to prevent a disease like Alzheimer’s disease. But this is all something that has to be confirmed by other studies. The purpose of this study was just to generate hypotheses, new ideas, and ways of thinking outside the box about Alzheimer’s disease, new treatments that we haven’t thought of yet. If you could find a treatment that prevented the Alzheimer’s disease cells from trying to divide inappropriately the way that cancer cells do, you could save those cells.”

Dr. Driver next wants to further investigate which types of cancer treatment seem to have a protective effect against Alzheimer’s disease. “It will be important that other groups look at this as well, so we can really get a fuller picture of this association,” she concluded.

—Colby Stong
Editor