Research Fraud: Is Everything We Think We Know About Alzheimer’s Disease Wrong? - SciTechDaily

If you’ve been following the news about Alzheimer’s disease research in recent months, you may be wondering what else could go wrong.

This is the molecule that decades of Alzheimer’s research focused on as an important factor in the disease and a key to potential treatments to reverse it.

But in fact, scientists at the Michigan Alzheimer’s Disease Center and elsewhere have spent years looking beyond amyloid in the search for answers to the roots of dementia and ways to prevent or treat it.

“It’s true that amyloid plays a role in the brain and dementia, but Alzheimer’s disease is complicated and there’s much more to it than one molecule,” says Henry Paulson, M.D., Ph.D., who directs the center and has devoted his own laboratory’s research at Michigan Medicine and his clinical care to dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases for decades.

The study at the center of the scandal has to do with a specific form of amyloid, AB*56, that was put forth as an important “toxic oligomer” encouraging plaque formation.

However, Paulson says he and many of his colleagues have not paid much specific attention to it for many years.

There’s plenty of evidence that middle-aged and older adults who want to reduce their risk of dementia, or slow its onset, should focus on healthy habits like sleep, exercise, nutrition, social engagement, and controlling blood pressure and cholesterol.

Targeting amyloid for treatments may be like trying to saddle up a horse that has already left the barn, he says – too much has happened in the disease process by the time the plaques begin to form for a treatment to make much of a difference.

That’s why the Michigan Alzheimer’s Disease Center is continually seeking people to take part in studies involving everything from brain scans to surveys.

But in the meantime, studies have already shown another important upstream effect that many people may not realize, Paulson says.

There’s plenty of evidence that middle-aged and older adults who want to reduce their risk of dementia, or slow its onset, should focus on healthy habits like sleep, exercise, nutrition, social engagement, and controlling blood pressure and cholesterol.

“If you’re 70 years old, I can’t tell you to go back in time and eat healthier or get more years of school, but I can tell you to do more to get a good night’s sleep as often as possible, and connect socially with other people,” says Paulson, a professor of neurology.

For the millions of families dealing with a loved one’s dementia today, the hope of new treatments may seem like a faint light on the horizon that’s fading as their loved one gets further into their disease!

August 13, 2022

August 13, 2022

August 13, 2022

August 12, 2022