Researchers find a hint at how to delay Alzheimer's symptoms. Now they have to prove it

An experimental treatment appears to delay Alzheimer’s symptoms in some people genetically destined to get the disease in their 40s or 50s, according to new findings from ongoing research now caught up in Trump administration funding delays.

The early results — a scientific first — were published Wednesday even as study participants worried that politics could cut their access to a possible lifeline.

“It’s still a study but it has given me an extension to my life that I never banked on having,” said Jake Heinrichs of New York City.

Now 50, Heinrichs has been treated in that study for more than a decade and remains symptom-free despite inheriting an Alzheimer’s-causing gene that killed his father and brother around the same age.

If blocked funding stops Heinrichs’ doses, “how much time do we have?” asked his wife, Rachel Chavkin. “This trial is life.”

Two drugs sold in the U.S. can modestly slow worsening of early-stage Alzheimer’s by clearing the brain of one of its hallmarks, a sticky gunk called amyloid. But until now, there haven't been hints that removing amyloid far earlier – many years before the first symptoms appear – just might postpone the disease.

The research led by Washington University in St. Louis involves families that pass down rare gene mutations almost guaranteeing they’ll develop symptoms at the same age their affected relatives did – information that helps scientists tell if treatments are having any effect.

The new findings center on a subset of 22 participants who received amyloid-removing drugs the longest, on average eight years. Long-term amyloid removal cut in half their risk of symptom onset, researchers reported Wednesday in the journal Lancet Neurology.

Despite the study’s small size, “it’s incredibly important,” said Northwestern University neuroscientist David Gate, who wasn’t involved with the research.

Now participants have been switched from an earlier experimental drug to Leqembi, an IV treatment approved in the U.S., to try to answer the obvious next question.

“What we want to determine over the next five years is how strong is the protection,” said Washington University’s Dr. Randall Bateman, who directs the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer’s Network of studies involving families with these rare genes. “Will they ever get the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease if we keep treating them?”

Here’s the worry: Bateman raised money to start that confirmatory study while seeking National Institutes of Health funding for the full project but his grant has been delayed as required reviews were canceled. It's one example of how millions of dollars in research have been stalled as NIH grapples with funding restrictions and mass firings.

At the same time researchers wonder if NIH will shift focus away from amyloid research after comments by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, nominated as the agency's new director.

“One of the reasons I think that we have not made progress in Alzheimer’s, as much as we ought to have, is because the NIH has not supported a sufficiently wide range of hypotheses,” Bhattacharya told senators, responding to one who brought up an example of earlier science misconduct unrelated to current research.

Scientists don’t know exactly what causes Alzheimer’s, a mind-destroying disease that affects nearly 7 million Americans, mostly late in life. What’s clear is that silent changes occur in the brain at least two decades before the first symptoms -- and that sticky amyloid is a major contributor. At some point amyloid buildup appears to trigger a protein named tau to begin killing neurons, which drives cognitive decline.

Tau-fighting drugs now are being tested. Researchers also are studying other factors including inflammation, the brain’s immune cells and certain viruses.

NIH’s focus expanded as researchers found more potential culprits. In 2013, NIH’s National Institute on Aging funded 14 trials of possible Alzheimer’s drugs, over a third targeting amyloid. By last fall, there were 68 drug trials and about 18% targeted amyloid.

Northwestern’s Gate counts himself among scientists who “think amyloid isn’t everything,” but said nothing has invalidated the amyloid hypothesis. He recently used brain tissue preserved from an old amyloid study to learn how immune cells called microglia can clear those plaques and then switch to helping the brain heal, possible clues for improving today's modest therapies.

For now, amyloid clearly is implicated somehow and families with Alzheimer's-causing genes are helping answer a critical question for anyone at risk: Can blocking amyloid buildup really stave off symptoms? Without NIH funding, Bateman said, that opportunity will be lost.

“It’s absolutely insane,” said longtime study participant June Ward, who lives near Asheville, North Carolina, and plans to ask friends to complain to lawmakers.

Ward turns 64 in June and is healthy, two years older than when her mother's symptoms appeared. “It is exciting to think about the possibility that Alzheimer’s disease might not be what gets me,” she said.

In New York, Heinrichs said he has hope that his 3-year-old son won’t “experience the stress and sorrow that I lived through as a young man to watch my father fade away.”

“We need the NIH to be not politicized,” added Chavkin, his wife. “It’s just about keeping people alive or helping them live better. And in this case, it’s helping my husband survive.”

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Jake Heinrichs watches television during his infusion treatment with an experimental anti-amyloid Alzheimer's drug in New York, on Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

Jake Heinrichs holds a photo of his father who died from Alzheimer's, in New York, on Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

Jake Heinrichs looks through old family photos with his son, Sam, on Wednesday, March 12, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

Jake Heinrichs plays with his 3-year-old son, Sam, after his infusion treatment with an experimental anti-amyloid Alzheimer's drug in New York, on Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

Jake Heinrichs sits with his 3-year-old son, Sam, during his infusion treatment with an experimental anti-amyloid Alzheimer's drug in New York, on Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

Jake Heinrichs watches television with his 3-year-old son, Sam, while his wife, Rachel Chavkin, works during his infusion treatment with an experimental anti-amyloid Alzheimer's drug in New York, on Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

Jake Heinrichs prepares for his infusion treatment with an experimental anti-amyloid Alzheimer's drug while at home in New York, on Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

Rachel Chavkin tears up while speaking about her husband, Jake Heinrichs, and his experience in an Alzheimer's drug study, while inside their home in New York, on Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

Jake Heinrichs prepares for his infusion treatment with an experimental anti-amyloid Alzheimer's drug while at home in New York, on Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

Jake Heinrichs hugs his wife, Rachel Chavkin, after speaking about early-stage Alzheimer's disease while inside their home in New York, on Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — At least six people died near Nigeria's capital Abuja after a trailer crashed into halted vehicles and burst into flames, police said Wednesday.

The accident happened on a busy highway near the Nyanya Bridge in Ayo, around 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the city center, after the trailer, laden with cement, lost control and rammed into 14 vehicles that were stuck in traffic, the Federal Capital Territory Police Command said in a statement.

The city's Emergency Management Department said preliminary reports indicate that the trailer was powered by Compressed Natural Gas (CNG).

“The impact engulfed 14 vehicles in a raging inferno," the statement read. “Panic and chaos followed as bystanders and motorists scrambled for safety.”

The police said six victims were pulled from the wreckage and rushed to the hospital, but were confirmed dead.

With the absence of an efficient railway system to transport cargo, fatal truck accidents are common along most major roads in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.

In January, 98 people were killed in a gasoline tanker blast in north-central Nigeria, near the Suleja area of Niger state, after individuals attempted to transfer gasoline from a crashed oil tanker into another truck using a generator. Some bystanders were at the scene to scoop gasoline.

Rescue workers remove a car that was involves in a crashed with a trailer in Abuja, Nigeria, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Olamikan Gbemiga)

Rescue workers remove the trailer that crashed into halted vehicles and burst into flames in Abuja, Nigeria, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Olamikan Gbemiga)

Rescue workers remove the trailer that crashed into halted vehicles and burst into flames in Abuja, Nigeria, Wednesday , March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Olamikan Gbemiga)