Nutraceuticals-based therapeutic approach: recent advances to combat pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease accompanying memory deficits. The available pharmaceutical care has some limitations mostly entailing side effects, shelf-life, and patient’s compliance. The momentous implications of nutraceuticals in AD have attracted scientists. Several preclinical studies for the investigation of nutraceuticals have been conducted.

Areas covered: This review focuses on the potential use of a nutraceuticals-based therapeutic approach to treat and prevent AD. Increasing knowledge of AD pathogenesis has led to the discovery of new therapeutic targets including pathophysiological mechanisms and various cascades. Hence, the present contribution will attend to the most popular and effective nutraceuticals with proposed brief mechanisms entailing antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, autophagy regulation, mitochondrial homeostasis, and more. Therefore, even though the effectiveness of nutraceuticals cannot be dismissed, it is essential to do further high-quality randomized clinical trials.

Expert opinion: According to the potential of nutraceuticals to combat AD as multi-target directed drugs, there is critical importance to assess them as feasible lead compounds for drug discovery and development. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, modification of blood–brain barrier permeability, bioavailability, and features of randomized clinical trials should be considered in prospective studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Alzheimer’s disease
• nutraceuticals
• amyloid-β protein
• τau protein
• inflammatory responses
• oxidative stress
• signaling pathways

Article highlights

• Oxidative stress, inflammation and apoptosis play a main role in AD pathogenesis.

• Nutraceuticals affect multiple pathways involved in the pathogenesis of AD.

• Flavonoids can influence neuronal activity and prevent AD.

• Pro/pre/synbiotics therapies are considered for neuroinflammation repression.

• Using available nutraceuticals might be more successful than drug discovery for AD.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.