A possible mechanism by which Alzheimer’s disease occurs has been discovered through the filtration of toxic proteins that pass from the blood to the brain.
Amyloid plaques are hard, insoluble accumulations of amyloid beta proteins that clump between nerve cells (neurons) in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients. Amyloid beta proteins are still not very well understood.
Beta amyloid proteins are thought to be involved in certain functions in the brain, but they are also eliminated by the lymphatic system, which clears waste products from the brain. For removal, amyloid beta proteins are transported as lipoproteins in the blood.
If these toxic proteins leave the brain like this, it could be that they enter the same way. In fact, researchers at Curtin University in the US have found that a likely cause of Alzheimer’s disease may be the leakage of these carrier particles from the bloodstream into the brain.
This blood-brain pathway is important because if doctors can control blood levels of amyloid lipoprotein and prevent it from leaking into the brain, it opens up potential new treatments to prevent Alzheimer’s and reduce the memory and cognitive loss it causes. cause.
In the study, the researchers tested this blood-brain hypothesis in genetically modified mice that allowed them to obtain a human-like liver where these lipoproteins are produced. In mice, the production of these amyloid lipoproteins in the liver caused inflammation in the brain, accelerated brain cell death and memory loss.
This finding shows that the abundance of these toxic protein deposits in the blood could be treated through a person’s diet and some medications that could specifically target lipoprotein amyloid, thus reducing their risk or slowing the progression of the disease.
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