Abstract
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the number one neurovegetative disease, but its treatment options are relatively few and ineffective. In efforts to discover new strategies for AD therapy, natural products have aroused interest in the research community and in the pharmaceutical industry for their neuroprotective activity, targeting different pathological mechanisms associated with AD. A wide variety of natural products from different origins have been evaluated preclinically and clinically for their neuroprotective mechanisms in preventing and attenuating the multifactorial pathologies of AD. This review mainly focuses on the possible neuroprotective mechanisms from natural products that may be beneficial in AD treatment and the natural product mixtures or extracts from different sources that have demonstrated neuroprotective activity in preclinical and/or clinical studies. It is believed that natural product mixtures or extracts containing multiple bioactive compounds that can work additively or synergistically to exhibit multiple neuroprotective mechanisms might be an effective approach in AD drug discovery.
Highlights
Alzheimer’s disease (AD), discovered by Dr Alois Alzheimer in 1906 [1], is currently the number one chronic neurodegenerative disease, affecting more than six million people in the US and about 50 million people worldwide [2]
According to the Aβ cascade hypothesis, Aβ peptides are the causative agent in AD because the extracellular deposition of Aβ peptides as senile plaques (SP) and neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) will result in neuron loss, vascular damage, and dementia [22]
While natural products and their isolated natural compounds have been well established as neuroprotective agents and valuable resources for exploring novel approaches in AD treatment, many of them still remain untested and their clinical use is not easy to monitor for a wide variety of reasons [300]
Summary
Alzheimer’s disease (AD), discovered by Dr Alois Alzheimer in 1906 [1], is currently the number one chronic neurodegenerative disease, affecting more than six million people in the US and about 50 million people worldwide [2]. In contrast to the high prevalence of AD, we only have five drugs approved by the FDA for its treatment, namely rivastigmine, galantamine, donepezil, memantine, and memantine in combination with donepezil None of these drugs can reverse, stop, or even slow down the damage and destruction of neurons that cause AD symptoms and make the disease fatal. All the currently available medications for AD, except for memantine which blocks NMDA receptors in the brain from excess stimulation that can damage nerve cells, increase the amount of neurotransmitters in the brain to temporarily improve cognitive symptoms. These drugs’ effectiveness varies a lot individually and is limited in duration. Among all the literature meeting our criteria, we especially focused on natural product extracts and mixtures
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