Drug companies have spent billions of dollars searching for therapies to reverse or significantly slow Alzheimer's disease, but in vain.

医药公司已经花费数十亿美元以寻找能逆转或显著减缓阿尔茨海默病的治疗方法，但毫无结果。

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Inhibitor drugs have been developed to block two of the proteins, to slow progression of the disease after infection.

已经开发出抑制药物来阻断其中两种蛋白质，以减缓感染后疾病的进程。

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With no cure for Alzheimer's disease in sight, researchers have concentrated on trying to slow the rate at which it corrodes the brain and to postpone its onset.

由于目前在治疗早老性痴呆病上还没有什么好办法，因此，研究人员的注意力集中于试图使这种病侵蚀大脑的速度放慢，推迟其开始发作的时间。

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Furthermore, about two-thirds of men who get prostate cancer have a slow-growing "indolent" form of the disease that will not kill them.

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So Merck is plunging ahead in one of medicine's toughest challenges finding a drug to slow Alzheimer's disease despite repeated failures that have led most drugmakers to halt or scale back research on the No. 6 killer in the U.S. It's a particularly risky strategy because scientists are still unraveling exactly what drives Alzheimer's.

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Guarente feels that drugs that target SIRT1 might slow aging and have wide effects on other, more testable diseases, such as cancer and heart disease.

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