been referred to by some as the disease of the century (Izenberg, 2000). Several reasons for this increased attention have been considered. Advances in both safety and medical sciences have resulted in a lengthening of our lives and have increased the chance that any of us will suffer from illnesses that tend to occur later in life. This problem is combined with the population surge that occurred shortly after World War II. The result is an increasingly older population. As our population ages, the number of Alzheimer patients could triple to 14 million. Additionally, people do not die directly from Alzheimer's disease but from complications, such as pneumonia (Izenberg, 2000). Recent studies have found many different drugs to be effective in treating the disease, but none that truly cure it. Scientists of the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Dementia Research are doing a study looking at the effects of cholesterol-lowering drugs. These drugs, also known as statins, have revolutionized the treatment of cardiovascular disease and now may also have the ability to prevent or at least delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease. "Over the years, there's been a lot of clinical, epidemiological, and more recently, laboratory data that support a link between cholesterol... and susceptibility to Alzheimer's disease," says Lorenzo Refolo one of the scientists from the Institute (Travis, 2001). Michael J. Mullan, of the University of South Florida in South Tampa, says this about statins, "we may have, right at our fingertips, very good drugs for preventing or treating Alzheimer's disease." It must be kept in mind that it will take some years to confirm the benefit of these drugs (Travis, 2001).Just recently, the company of Johnson & Johnson received Food and Drug Administration approval for a new drug to help the fight of Alzheimer's disease. The drug, Reminyl, is said to be able to treat mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's cases. Reminyl was shown to b...
