I got forwarded a teaser seen on social media from a non medical site. “Switzerland blood nanofilter removes Alzheimer’s proteins in hours reversing dementia.” Wow! Amazing! But is it real? So I did what I like to do, and I went to see what published scientific studies are showing.
We are super interested in this at Biohackr Health, and we have EBO2 (aka EBOO), which is a blood filtration machine. Could this help with Alzheimer patients? Please know dementia is a multifactorial thing, and we would never propose a silver bullet to “fix” it. Please read our blogs on dementia + brain health, and see our testing brain tests including Alzheimer gene,
So what do studies show?
These studies are a mix of dialysis, plasmapheresis, and plasma exchange. So they are not a 1:1 proxy for EBOO. To do a plasma exchange, you must filter the plasma. To do dialysis, you are filtering the blood. It is that filter component which we are most interested in.
The AMBAR trial
- Plasmapheresis and albumin replacement (with or without intravenous immunoglobulin). Albumin is thought to bind amyloid beta, and it is an antioxidant and affects the immune system.
- NOTE: plasmapheresis involves filtering the blood. In this study it is replaced with albumin.
- Pooled treated patients had 66% less disease progression than controls based on ADAS-Cog scores and 52% less based on ADCS-ADL scores.
- Effect was best seen in those with moderate disease
Hemodialysis studies
- Patients in long term hemodialysis have lower plasma amyloid-beta levels
- This correlated with maintained or improved cognitive function and lower brain amyloid deposition
- It is thought the clearance rates during a single dialysis session were 22% for amyloid beta 42, and 35% for amyloid beta 40
Animal studies looking at whole blood exchange
- Reduction in brain amyloid plaques by 40-80%
- Improved spatial memory in mice
Systematic review/Meta-analysis looking at plasma exchange
- NOTE: plasma exchange is removal of plasma with replacement with something else (like albumin), where blood filtration (EBO2) is filtering the plasma. They are not the same thing.
- No significant difference in cognitive improvement for plasma exchange
- The therapy is safe and well tolerated.
What do we think at Biohackr Health?
There is no one “treatment” for dementia. This is something which has many factors, and by addressing as many of them as you can, you can help. Genetics will tell you if you are at increased risk. But even for those without the genetic markers, there is risk.
- Start early. That means whatever age you are, start now. Studies show even those with active disease are helped with exercise and other interventions.
- Look at all the risk factors. Please read our blogs.
- Test. From cholesterol, blood sugar, hormones, to the ApoE gene, see your risk and where you may intervene. Test
- Blood sugar control. Diabetes is a risk factor for dementia and GLPs have been shown to slow progression. We offer continuous glucose monitoring, testing for insulin resistance and HBA1c, and offer GLPs. weight loss
- Exercise. Build muscle. This has been shown over and over again to slow or reverse progression. Use our pure German micronized creatine to help. Creatine info and shop
- EBOO (aka EBO2). After reading these studies, particularly those with dialysis, blood filtration would fall under promising but not proven for us. But given the devastation of dementia, if an intervention is safe and may help, we would add it to the list. EBO2 info
Come into the clinic for more guidance.