Salbutamol is an active substance from the group of beta-2 sympathomimetics and is used as a bronchospasmolytic in bronchial asthma and COPD, because it relaxes the smooth muscles of the bronchi. Researchers at Lancaster University have now discovered that the asthma drug could also be used for secondary medical purposes. Using novel screening approaches and analytical techniques, it was found that salbutamol is one of four potential drugs that could be used to treat early-stage Alzheimer’s dementia, which could help cure or slow the disease. The scientists‘ research is still in the early stages, but in the test tube, salbutamol showed that the active substance, which has already withstood extensive safety tests, has the potential to successfully treat Alzheimer’s disease. Salbutamol thus leads to a drastic reduction in the density of fibrous tau structures, which are believed to be responsible for the occurrence of the disease, after other scientific studies on the formation of amyloid plaques were not successful. The study examined 80 existing chemical compounds and drugs that can prevent the formation of tau fibrils, similar to adrenaline. Although the effectiveness of adrenaline has been proven and scientifically confirmed, the active ingredient cannot be used in practice because it is broken down too quickly. The search for chemically similar active ingredients ultimately led the scientists to four remaining ones, including salbutamol, but also etamivan, fenoterol and dobutamine. In the current studies, however, salbutamol proved to be the most effective, partly because the long-proven asthma active ingredient can be easily absorbed, is absorbed in the brain and is not subject to rapid degradation, i.e. the metabolism is slow and the active ingredient remains in the body for a long time. However, salbutamol will still have to prove in clinical studies how effective the substance is in the treatment of Alzheimer’s dementia, which already affects 47 million people worldwide today and is estimated to affect 130 million people by 2050. First positive results have already been published in the journal „ACS Chemical Neuroscience“.
