Earlier Treatment Generates Better Outcomes
Researchers from Aberdeen have identified changes in the brains of those suffering early signs of Alzheimer’s disease.
A University of Aberdeen study confirmed for the first time that two proteins, assumed to contribute to the disease process, are both present at very early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Both are present in an area of the brain that is involved in memory formation and information processing–the hippocampus.
The Alzheimer’s Research UK funded the research, which will have implications for the development of new drugs, but may also provide important information for diagnosis of the disease.
The team, led by Dr Koss and Professor Bettina Platt, used human brain samples provided by the Brains for Dementia Research platform to investigate changes in the brain at different stages of the disease. The researchers developed novel ways to study two proteins (tau and amyloid), both associated with Alzheimer’s disease, and determined how each one contributed to the onset, progression and symptoms of the disease.
“The entire research community is in agreement that it’s important to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease early,” said Dr. Koss. “Our findings will go some way to help achieve this. These early-stage changes in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease highlight key biochemical processes that may not only enable improved diagnostic procedures but may also inform drug development.”
Early diagnosis also can help protect caregivers and others from the transmission of Alzheimer’s disease.
It’s likely spreading through the bodily fluids of victims. Items exposed, including drinking glasses, utensils are impossible to sterilize.
“There is now real evidence of the potential transmissibility of Alzheimer’s,” says Thomas Wiesniewski M.D. a prion and Alzheimer’s researcher at New York University School of Medicine. “In fact, this ability to transmit an abnormal conformation is probably a universal property of amyloid-forming proteins.”
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Gary Chandler is a prion expert. He is the CEO of Crossbow Communications, author of several books and producer of documentaries about health and environmental issues around the world. Chandler is connecting the dots to the global surge in neurodegenerative disease, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, chronic wasting disease and other forms of prion disease. The scientific name for prion disease is transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. The operative word is “transmissible.” Even the global surge in autism appears to be related.
