Alzheimer dementia mortality is increasing in the United States, while heart disease and cancer death rates have decreased at least 25% recently.1 New cardiac and cancer treatments frequently make headlines. However, the assessment of Alzheimer’s therapy is stark: “…there are currently no treatments that change the course of this progressive brain disorder,” [original italics] so stated in the 2014-2015 Alzheimer Disease Progress Report by the National Institute of Aging (NIA).2
President Obama signed the National Alzheimer’s Project Act in 2011, with a goal of having effective therapy by 2025. Now five years later, clinicaltrials.gov lists fewer than 120 Alzheimer drug trials in the US recruiting subjects, with nearly 500,000 new patients each year. Heart disease has almost 800 drug trials, while adult cancer has almost 4000 drug trials listed.
Clinical research efforts in a disease are reflected by the number of pertinent clinical trial publications. We examined Pub Med data along with US mortality statistics to show the juxtaposition of those measures for Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, cancer and six other leading causes of death, (Figure 1).3,4
Reductions in US disease mortality have been proportional to the number of trials conducted in each disease except Alzheimer’s, during the years 2000-2013. Alzheimer’s disease is a significant outlier, since mortality is increasing while the number of peer-reviewed publications lags behind other conditions.
