Adeona Pharmaceuticals, Inc., (Amex: AEN) announced five scientific publications on the role of copper toxicity and zinc deficiency in Alzheimer's disease and cognitive decline. The author of all these publications is Adeona's scientific founder and consultant, George J. Brewer, M.D., the Morton S. and Henrietta Sellner Emeritus Professor of Human Genetics and Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan.
The first two publications describe the results of Adeona's observational clinical study of zinc and copper status in 29 patients with Alzheimer's disease, 30 patients with Parkinson's disease, and 29 age- and sex-matched controls (CopperProof-1). The CopperProof-1 study was conducted at Albany Medical Center by Earl Zimmerman, M.D., Director of the Alzheimer's Centers, Eric Molho, M.D., Director of the Parkinson's Disease Centers and Dzintra Celmins, M.D., of the Parkinson's Disease Centers.
The first publication entitled, "Subclinical Zinc Deficiency in Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease," was published in the November 2010 issue of the American Journal of Alzheimer's Disease & Other Dementias. Serum zinc and urinary zinc were compared across the three groups of patients. The results showed a significantly lower serum zinc level in patients with Alzheimer's and patients with Parkinson's than in controls.
The second publication entitled, "Copper and Ceruloplasmin Abnormalities in Alzheimer's Disease," was published in the September 2010 issue of the American Journal of Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias. That publication describes how copper may play a role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease and increased exposure to environmental copper and/or defective ceruloplasmin function could directly be contributing to the Alzheimer's epidemic.
Since the initial presentation of the CopperProof-1 results by Adeona during the 2009 International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease, the finding of zinc deficiency in Alzheimer's disease has been independently confirmed by two other groups that published their findings in 2009 and 2010.
The third publication is an editorial entitled, "Copper toxicity in the general population" and was published on April 12, 2010, in Clinical Neurophysiology. Dr. Brewer's editorial is associated with a study published in the same journal by the investigators, Salustri C, et al, "Is cognitive function linked to serum free copper levels? A cohort study in a normal population". In a cohort study utilizing a battery of neuropsychological tests, the investigators of the latter study report for the first time an inverse correlation between serum free copper levels and cognition in an otherwise healthy cohort of post-menopausal women over the age of 50 (p<0.001).
Remarking on the Salustri study as well as the substantial body of scientific evidence over the last six years implicating copper toxicity in cognitive loss, Dr. Brewer raises the important questions in his editorial, "why has there never been a formal toxicity study of copper in drinking water, while most developed countries embrace household copper plumbing, with its copper leaching problems?" and "with all the evidence emerging in the last six years, why are pharmaceutical and neutraceutical companies continuing to put large amounts of copper in their supplement pills, and why are they allowed to do so?"
The fourth publication entitled, "Risks of Copper and Iron Toxicity During Aging in Humans", was published in electronic form on December 7, 2009 in Chemical Research in Toxicology. The publication addresses the emerging evidence on the role of chronic copper toxicity in a broader array of diseases that widely affect persons over the age of 50, including Alzheimer's disease, atherosclerosis and complications of diabetes mellitus. Dr. Brewer concludes in that publication, "it seems clear that large segments of the population are at risk for toxicities from free copper and free iron and... it seems clear that preventive steps should begin now."
The fifth publication entitled, "The Risks of Copper Toxicity Contributing to Cognitive Decline in the Aging Population and to Alzheimer's Disease," was published in the June 2009 issue of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. The publication addresses the mounting evidence accumulated over the last seven years implicating chronic soluble inorganic copper toxicity, especially from inorganic sources of copper such as that regularly leeched into tap water, and copper which is included in most multivitamin/mineral supplements. According to the "Copper Hypothesis" outlined in the paper by Dr. Brewer, "the epidemics of MCI (mild cognitive impairment) and AD (Alzheimer's disease) in our population over age 50 is partly due to the ingestion of inorganic copper in drinking water and copper supplements."
George J. Brewer, M.D., Adeona's scientific founder and consultant, remarked, "We are starting to build the peer-reviewed scientific literature that supports the hypothesis that copper toxicity and zinc deficiency is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease and cognitive decline. With that scientific infrastructure in place, I believe that high dose oral zinc administration should prove to have a vital therapeutic role in these disease conditions."
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