Free Republic

An ancient human foraging instinct, fueled by fructose production in the brain, may hold clues to the development and possible treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD), according to researchers. "We make the case that Alzheimer's disease is driven by diet," said Richard Johnson, MD. Johnson and his team suggest that AD is a harmful adaptation of an evolutionary survival pathway used in animals and our distant ancestors during times of scarcity. When threatened with the possibility of starvation, early humans developed a survival response which sent them foraging for food. Yet foraging is only effective if metabolism is inhibited in various...

New research from the University of Cincinnati bolsters a hypothesis that Alzheimer’s disease is caused by a decline in levels of a specific protein, contrary to a prevailing theory that has been recently called into question.The research is focused on a protein called amyloid-beta. The protein normally carries out its functions in the brain in a form that is soluble, meaning dissolvable in water, but it sometimes hardens into clumps, known as amyloid plaques.The conventional wisdom in the field of Alzheimer’s research for more than 100 years stated that Alzheimer’s was caused by the buildup of amyloid plaques in the...

Multiple studies in humans and mouse models indicate that sleep disruptions raise the risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD) by increasing the accumulation of disease-relevant proteins such as amyloid-beta (A-beta) in the brain. In the current study, a team discovered that restoring normal sleep by returning to normal the activity of the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN), a brain region involved in maintaining stable sleep, reduced the accumulation of A-beta plaques in the brain. The study suggests that TRN not only may play a previously unsuspected driving role in symptoms associated with Alzheimer's, but also that restoring its normal activity could be...

Alzheimer's disease is caused by immune cells in the brain triggered by inflammation, according to a breakthrough discovery. The new research could lead to the development of a drug that treats or even prevents the condition within five years, say scientists. Experiments found destroying specific cells - known as microglia - reduced the formation of clumps of amyloid beta that form in Alzheimer's and destroy memory. These are the rogue proteins believed to lie at the root of the devastating neurological illness. Human trials of all therapies have failed in the past. Most have targeted the amyloid plaques that build...