On 10 December, the Diabetes Trials Unit and the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford announced the start of a new clinical trial with the global healthcare company, Novo Nordisk. The Impact of Semaglutide in Amyloid Positivity (ISAP) trial will examine semaglutide, a tablet prescribed for diabetes, for reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s dementia.
The trial will recruit 88 people without dementia in five UK clinical sites. Participants will have a brain scan (PET, Positron emission tomography) to check levels of amyloid protein in their brains. People with high amyloid protein levels in their brains will have further PET scans to determine levels of the amyloid protein but also check tau protein and the level of inflammation in the brain. They will then be asked to take either semaglutide or a placebo tablet, every day for one year. Researchers will repeat the brain scans to see if those taking semaglutide have lower levels of tau protein and inflammation in their brains compared to people taking placebo.
