"Keystone Drug News: Phase 2 Anti-oligomer Sugar Alcohol—How Might It Work?"
http://www.alzforum.org/new/detail.asp?id=1792

I ran across the research in to scyllo-inositol (a.k.a. scyllitol, quercinitol, cocositol) back in 2006, but was frustrated to find that, even though it is a naturally occurring plant sugar, dietary supplement manufactures haven't caught on to its benefits. It is most abundant in coconut palm fronds and coconut milk. My interest shifted to curcumin when I found out that, at least in mice, it also "disaggregated" the amyloid beta plaques.

http://www.chemindustry.com/chemicals/482133.html

Just went online and did quickee search after reading your link. Thre is inositol available for purchase but have not found the scyllo-inositol. Any one know if it is manufactured? Like most of you I am willing to try anything to give my mom some hope and maybe even relief.

I ran into the same thing. What you find in stores is "myo-inositol". There are six isomers of inositol, that is, six forms of the molecules that are identical in chemical composition, but the relative positions of the component atoms are different with respect to the whole. One isomer is myo-inositol, another is scyllo-inositol. Myo-inositol doesn't work.

I have found only laboratory grade scyllo-inositol available, and that is VERY expensive. Since it is a naturally occurring plant sugar (alcohol?), I figured that surely someone would have a process for extracting it. I did find one article from the 1920's where they were able to extract it from dogwood tree flowers, or something like that. But they had to start with huge quantities to end up with a very small amount. There may be better sources, but the best I could find is the coconut palm. Coconut milk is high in it, that's why one of its names is "cocositol". The fonds of the tree also have a lot. I think it's something like 500 parts per million. If you had one liter of coconut milk, I think you would end up with 0.5 milliliter. There also had been some studies trying to find some commercial use for coconut palm sap. Perhaps this would be a good one. Being an electrical engineer, chemistry and biochemistry are not my strong subjects.

In the midst of my frustration for finding a source for scyllitol, I found the studies that found that curcumin "disaggregated" amyloid beta plaques in the genetically engineered mice they use to test these AD drugs on. And since AD is rare in India, where curcumin is consumed on a regular basis by way of the turmeric spice in curries, I figured I could set my quest for scyllitol aside.

Wow!

ELND005 in Patients With Mild to Moderate Alzheimer's Disease
This study is ongoing, but not recruiting participants.
First Received: December 4, 2007 Last Updated: July 9, 2009 History of Changes
Sponsor: Elan Pharmaceuticals
Collaborator: Transition Therapeutics

Information provided by: Elan Pharmaceuticals
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00568776

Detailed Description:
ELND005 (formerly known as AZD-103), scyllo-inositol, is being investigated as an orally administered treatment for Alzheimer's disease (AD). ELND005 may prevent or inhibit the build up of amyloid protein in the brains of Alzheimer's disease patients.

This is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, dose-ranging, safety and efficacy study of oral ELND005 in male and female participants aged 50-85 years with mild to moderate AD. Approximately 340 patients will be enrolled into the study at approximately 65 study sites. Patients will be randomized to receive either ELND005 or placebo. Each patient's participation will last approximately 18 months.
http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/...term=elnd-005&rank=1

Thanks for updating this thread. I looked it up and it was $175 for 25 mg.
WOW!

It got "fast track" approval, whatever that means. Hopefully if the results are good, fast track will actually be fast.

The study you linked says that it's testing for safety and efficacy, that could mean phase two or three, correct? Let's hope it's phase three so it will be marketed sooner rather than later.

That $175 is for the laboratory grade chemical. I suppose if there was a "food grade" available that had some non-toxic impurities from whatever plant source it was extracted, then it should be much less expensive. I read that the fronds of coconut palms are an abundant source. But, it seems that no one is doing this. That's why I gave up on this and switched my attention to curcumin.

The topic of scyllitol is so old that I thought I should provide some of the articles about it.

A Sweet Solution For Alzheimer's Disease?
ScienceDaily (June 12, 2006) — Certain variants of a simple sugar ameliorate Alzheimer's-like disease in mice, according to a new study by Canadian researchers. Although the new studies are still in the early stages, the findings could lead to new therapies that prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease. The new studies show that some types of a sugar called cyclohexanehexol—also known as inositol—prevented the accumulation of amyloid β deposits, a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. Scyllo-inositol treatment also improved cognitive abilities in the mice and allowed them to live a normal lifetime. The study appeared in advance online publication of the journal Nature Medicine on June 11, 2006... When the researchers treated these mice with scyllo-inositol, all of the animals' disease symptoms improved. Cognitive function was improved, amyloid plaques disappeared, inflammation declined, and the mice lived longer. The scientists found that scyllo-inositol conferred these benefits not only if the mice were treated when they were very young and disease-free, but also if they were treated after the onset of disease. As a model system, these mice “are pretty good, but they're not a perfect replica of the disease,” St George-Hyslop said. The mice do not develop tau tangles, he explained, but they are prone to amyloid plaques, brain inflammation, cognitive disturbance, and early death, just like humans with Alzheimer's disease...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/re.../06/060612184412.htm

"Keystone Drug News: Phase 2 Anti-oligomer Sugar Alcohol—How Might It Work?"

8 April 2008. Eight years ago, JoAnne McLaurin’s research suggested that a particular stereoisomer of a inositol sugar alcohol might make a respectable AD drug (McLaurin et al., 2000; McLaurin et al., 2006)... In brief, scyllo-inositol appears to bind oligomers of Aβ42, preventing them from damaging synapses. The small molecule readily crosses the blood-brain barrier thanks to active transport; its accumulation in CSF and brain was shown recently (Fenili et al., 2007)... Adding scyllo-inositol to the drinking water of transgenic CRND8 mice (which are an aggressive mouse model of amyloidosis, tau hyperphosphorylation, cognitive deficit, and early death) returned the Morris water maze performance of these otherwise impaired mice to that of non-transgenic controls. The compounds gave normal mice no boost, suggesting it is no cognitive enhancer. This worked well into the advanced stages of disease in this model. McLaurin noted that an intact cholinergic system is a prerequisite for learning and remembering in the water maze...
http://www.alzforum.org/new/detail.asp?id=1792

I was quite interested in this three years ago. Scyllo-inositol (a.k.a. scyllitol, cocositol, or quercinitol) is NOT the same a the myo-inositol you can readily find in health food stores. Bummer. Scyllitol is a sugar alcohol found in many plants. The most abundant source I could come up with was the coconut palm. It is present at a 500ppm (parts per million) concentration in the fronds, and in the liquid at the center of the coconut. I think there's a pretty decent concentration in the sap too. I could not find any company commercially processing coconut palm products for the scyllitol, only expensive laboratory grade chemicals. This might be a lucrative supplement for some company to produce. I'm sure that coconut palm sap and fronds can be had cheap, but the processing would probably be expensive. Maybe not. It seems to me that the body can separate out the substances it needs, so even if you could get a substance from the palm trees with an increased concentration of scyllitol it would probably be effective. That is, of course, if this works in humans as well as it does for these lab mice.

However, if you do a search on "curcumin" you will find that this extract of the curry spice turmeric is said to do the same thing for AD lab mice, and curcumin is readily available.

Correction: Coconut palm fronds (or leaves) have about 5ppm of scyllitol, not 500ppm.

Yeah... that makes extracting this stuff from plants rather impractical. It would take 1,000,000 grams of palm fronds to get 5 grams of scyllitol. That is 1000kg, 2200lbs, or a ton. I suppose this is possible as the byproduct of some other industrial process that uses massive quantities of coconut palms, otherwise, just not practical. So, a way to synthesize this stuff would be needed.

Since seeing a post about this on yahoo tauopathies group I have been trying to find out how concentrated scyllo-inositol is in coconut palm sugar, which some sources say it is most concentrated in (coconut palm sugar is from the sap.) This sugar is readily available from Asian stores and online. It actually tastes very good too. Also, it would be nice to know what percent of "inositol powder" is the scyllo isomer. Anyone know the answers?

Tagging this just to watch.

Dr. Newport, is there an update on your hubby somewhere? Hope he is still improving or at least holding steady. Have you changed anything with his supplements?

Where did you get the coconut palm sugar?

Thanks all for your continued efforts and search.