Share on PinterestScientists are investigating xenon gas as a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s. Westend61/Getty Images
- Researchers continue to search for effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, which affects increasing numbers of people every year.
- Most Alzheimer’s medications treat the symptoms, not the cause, although newer treatments reduce the characteristic brain lesions of Alzheimer’s and may slow cognitive decline.
- Now, research has identified a potential new therapy for Alzheimer’s — xenon gas.
- In a mouse model, researchers found that xenon gas inhalation suppressed neuroinflammation and reduced brain shrinkage.
- Encouraged by these results, they are starting a clinical trial of xenon gas in people.
Xenon gas is an unreactive gas that makes up 0.086 parts per million by volume of the air that we breathe. It has long been used in general anesthesia, and studies have shown that it may also have cardioprotective and neuroprotective effects.
It could also help you climb mountains! A British mountaineer, Garth Miller, who is trying to complete the fastest-ever ascent of Everest in May this year, is testing another claimed property of xenon gas — that it increases the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood. Studies suggest that inhaling a blend containing xenon may increase the production of erythropoietin, a hormone that regulates the production of red blood cells, which transport oxygen around the body.
Lukas Furtenbach, a mountain guide and climber from Austria, who is helping Miller on his Everest challenge, is convinced that inhaling the xenon gas mixture aided his rapid ascent of Aconcagua in Argentina in 2020.
Now, scientists from Mass General Brigham and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, have found that the noble gas may have other beneficial effects. In a trial featuring a mouse model of Alzheimer’s, scientists found that the mice who inhaled a mixture containing xenon gas showed reduced levels of brain atrophy and neuroinflammation.
The study is being followed by clinical trials in people and is published inScience Translational Medicine.
“The results are intriguing. Importantly, we know a lot about xenon gas and its impact on humans from anesthesia in terms of safety and tolerability. It is quite expensive and there would be a challenge understanding how to deliver it to a large patient group and avoid anesthetic events.”
— Anton Porsteinsson, MD, Director of the University of Rochester Alzheimer’s Disease Care, Research and Education Program (AD-CARE), who was not involved in the study.
Safe treatment shows Alzheimer’s potential
One of the challenges of treating Alzheimer’s is finding therapeutics that can cross the blood-brain barrier and get into the brain. Xenon gas can safely penetrate this barrier, passing directly from the bloodstream into the fluid surrounding the brain.
The researchers used a mouse model of acute neurodegeneration to test xenon’s effects. They put mice with different models of Alzheimer’s disease into a specially constructed chamber, where they inhaled air with 30% xenon gas for 40 minutes. The researchers then investigated the treatment’s effects on cells affected by Alzheimer’s disease.
They found that when xenon penetrated the blood-brain barrier, it altered the behavior of microglia — immune cells that change during the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
Inhaled xenon gas caused the microglia to revert to a protective state, leading to a decrease in the amyloid plaques characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease, reduced inflammation, and less brain shrinkage.
Heather M., Snyder, PhD, senior vice president of medical and scientific relations at the Alzheimer’s Association, which provided funding for one of the authors of this study, told Medical News Today: “Understanding how the immune cells interact with one another and how this cross-talk may impact brain changes observed in people with Alzheimer’s, is a critical part of this work.”
The brain changes may also have improved cognitive function, as the mice treated with xenon gas showed improved nest-building behaviors.
Clinical trials to start soon
The researchers suggest that their findings identify the promising potential of xenon inhalation as a therapeutic approach that could modify microglial activity and reduce neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease.
They will start a clinical trial with healthy volunteers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) within the next few months to determine whether xenon gas could have similar benefits in humans.
Co-author Howard Weiner, MD, co-director of the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at BWH and principal investigator of the upcoming clinical trial, said in a press release: “If the clinical trial goes well, the opportunities for the use of Xenon gas are great. It could open the door to new treatments for helping patients with neurologic diseases.”
“This newly published study represents an interesting idea for possible future treatment of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases, and it deserves further investigation — including confirmation in other model systems and initial safety testing in people.”
— Heather M., Snyder, Ph.D.
Too early to recommend xenon to treat Alzheimer’s
Snyder cautioned that this study represented a very early step in investigating a potential new treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, telling MNT:
“While animal models of the disease are somewhat similar to how Alzheimer’s progresses in humans, they do not replicate the disease in humans exactly. Models are important in helping us understand the basic biology of the disease, but we need human studies in representative populations for ideas to be fully validated. Therefore, while these are intriguing findings, more research is needed.”
Porsteinsson echoed these comments.
“This is a very early pre-clinical study. First of all, it needs to be replicated, preferably by a different group. Then, we need to see if this works in primates in the same way, as well as human neuronal models. Mouse models are imperfect when it comes to predicting benefit to humans,” he told MNT.
However, the results are encouraging, and if clinical trials show similar results to this animal study, it could be a first step toward another therapy to help people with Alzheimer’s disease.
Snyder expressed optimism about the future of Alzheimer’s treatments:
“This is an exciting time. There is an increasingly robust treatment landscape for Alzheimer’s disease. The Alzheimer’s Association is committed to advancing all potential treatment avenues and exploring methods for combining diverse approaches into combination therapies.”
