Alzheimer’s Disease Linked to Proteins Associated With Aging
We have mentioned numerous times the link between inflammation and AD. This study provides further evidence that inflammation plays a key role in development of this disease. Aluminum has been implicated via its displacement of zinc in anti-inflammatory enzymes that protect the delicate brain tissue. Wheat allergy has been implicated via the systemic upregulation of the immune system leading to damage in the brain. As more evidence arises, we will hopefully begin to view AD as a disease of lifestyle that can be modified just like any other.
Trends in Neurosciences Alzheimer’s disease may be caused by inflammatory processes associated with aging, not by plaque-like deposits in the brain, researchers say. Scientists from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said their findings, published this week in the journal Trends in Neurosciences, still lay the blame for Alzheimer’s disease on amyloid beta, but trace the basic cause of the disease to the formation of toxic proteins rather than the build-up of plaque and tangles. “We were able to identify in laboratory test tubes a new kind of toxic activity that is implicated as a root cause of Alzheimer’s,” Dr. Caleb Finch, director of the Neurogerontology Division at the USC Andrus Center’s Gerontology Research Institute. The researchers discovered a novel form of wadded-up amyloid called “amyloid b-derived diffusible ligands” — ADDLs or “addles” for short — that form in the presence of certain inflammatory proteins in the brain.