Does the key to preventing and treating Alzheimer’s lie in the blood of those who exercise?
This question forms the basis of our research project, which seeks to explore new opportunities for developing medicines that can prevent, delay, and/or treat Alzheimer’s disease – the most common form of dementia. The greatest risk factor for Alzheimer’s is advanced age. With a rapidly aging global population, the prevalence of this fatal disease is expected to triple by 2050 unless more effective treatments are developed. Today, a new patient is diagnosed every minute, and no curative treatment exists.
Several studies have demonstrated a close connection between cardiovascular health and brain function. Regular exercise has been shown to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Recent research from Harvard and Stanford has shown that blood from young mice can have rejuvenating effects on the brains of older mice and protect against Alzheimer’s-related damage. This suggests that blood contains factors that could potentially be isolated, refined, and developed into medicines. Stanford has already conducted the first clinical trial to investigate the effects of young blood in Alzheimer’s patients. The study found that the treatment was safe, but the trial was too small to conclude whether cognitive function improved.
We believe, however, that trained blood – blood influenced by physical activity – may have even greater potential than young blood in preventing and slowing brain degeneration. This represents an entirely new perspective, and the therapeutic effect of trained blood has never before been studied. In our ongoing project, 55 patients have been included as of October 1, 2025, and we expect recruitment to be completed by the end of November 2025.
The study is being carried out in collaboration with researchers at NTNU, St. Olavs Hospital, and the University of Oslo, in close consultation with world-leading research environments, including Harvard Medical School.
The number of people around the world above the age of 60 is increasing, and forecast to reach 2 billion by 2050. With this come the challenges of handling age-related neurodegenerative diseases such as mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). No cure exists; AD-drug candidates have a failure rate of 99.6%, treatment options are only marginally effective, the need for optimized prevention, diagnostics and treatment is obvious.
Exercise training and particularly a high age-relative fitness level are emerging as the most promising preventive “AD medicines” with direct beneficial impact on enhancing cognitive function as well as quality of life. Many diseased MCI/AD patients are not able to exercise and may, therefore, not be able to benefit from the positive effects of exercise training. In this study, we aim to test the hypothesis that blood borne factors induced by exercise are responsible for beneficial effects of exercise on the brain. The study is part of a long-lasting translational and multidisciplinary effort to determine whether physical activity and exercise-induced blood borne factors hold the key to prevent and treat AD and neurodegeneration. Here we will use a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled design and investigate the effect of regular (3x4 weeks over 12 months) transfusion of fresh frozen plasma from well-trained healthy donors (ExPlas) into blood-type matched patients with MCI or early stage AD upon cognitive function, functional capacity, biomarker-profile in cerebrospinal fluid, fMRI, fitness and quality of life. Our overarching hypothesis is that exercised blood slow progression of disease, improve cognitive function and functional capacity, and ameliorate disease biomarker-profile.
The study is approved by the Regional Ethical Committee (REK 2018/702) and the Norwegian Medicines Agency (Statens Legemiddelverk), EudraCT No. 2018-000148-24.
