New Hope for an Alzheimer's Cure?

 

Alzheimer's Disease is the 6th leading cause of death in the United States. One in 3 seniors dies with Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia, more than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined. More than 6 million Americans suffer with Alzheimer's and that number is expected to double over the next decade. Treating and caring for dementia patients costs $355B annually in the US, and by 2050 is expected to cost more than $1T per year.

This does not even consider the emotional cost. Alzheimer’s is a disease that affects everybody it touches—husbands, wives, children and grandchildren—they all bear witness to their loved one’s slow demise. 

After the ongoing Aduhelm fiasco  we are all understandably skeptical of any news of treatments or cures. But the financial, emotional and social costs of the disease are so enormous that we can not help but remain hopeful. Perhaps our hope has been rewarded, or soon will be.

Scientists at the University of California at Riverside (not a drug company) tried to study Alzheimer’s disease from a different perspective and the results may have led them to the cause of the disease. The researchers  recently published results from a study that looked at a protein called tau. By studying the different forms tau proteins take, researchers discovered the difference between people who developed dementia and those who didn’t.

The tau protein was critical for researchers because they wanted to understand what the protein could reveal about the mechanism behind plaques and tangles, two critical indicators doctors look for when diagnosing people with Alzheimer’s. By analyzing donated brain samples, researchers found that those with brain buildup, like plaques and tangles, but had no dementia had a normal form of tau. However, those who had a “different-handed” form of tau and developed plaques or tangles did have dementia.

You can read more about the study here.

Most proteins only survive for less than 48 hours in the body, and if they hang around too long, certain amino acids can convert into the other-handed isomer. So that means a left-handed isomer could inadvertently convert into a right-handed isomer, which can lead to serious problems.

However, the human body has a solution through a process called autophagy, which clears spent or defective proteins from cells. Unfortunately, as people age autophagy slows down, especially in people over the age of 65. It’s not clear exactly why.

There are drugs currently being tested to improve the process of autophagy, and some existing ones that are approved for cardiovascular disease and other conditions could speed up the approval process. Ryan Julian, a chemistry professor at UC-Riverside involved in the research, says that “if a slowdown in autophagy is the underlying cause, things that increase it should have the beneficial, opposite effect.”

Could this be the key to unlocking a cure? It is too soon to know but this latest advance seems especially promising.