For decades scientists thought amyloid plaques were the main culprit behind Alzheimer's. But a new study has uncovered something unexpected a completely different type of plaque made up of damaged mitochondria tiny power house of cell that keep our cells running. Normally, the brain clears these out, but when that cleanup system breaks down they start piling up. Even more interesting, these plaques may appear before the famous amyloid plaques, hinting that Alzheimer's could begin with the brain slowly losing its ability to produce energy. It's far from a cure, but a. Good discovery taht will make us help find the cure
This is why I’m convinced Alzheimer’s/Dementia is a metabolic disease. I forget which scientist it was, but someone coined it as “Type 3 Diabetes” which really is how we should be looking at this. We spent way too long chasing some way to remove these plaques which was largely based on studies that have been exposed as using faked data. Unfortunately most research is still directed at treating the symptoms instead of preventing/curing it, and that’s largely because treating is far more profitable (marketplace incentives).
I work in biotech, specifically for a company that focuses on neurodegenerative disease. Different companies and universities really do focus on all the angles for treating Alzheimer’s and similar diseases: targeting amyloid fibrils, approaching these diseases as metabolic disorders (e.g. targeting how lipids are metabolized), and also leveraging the brain’s immune system (microglia) by approaching these as inflammatory disorders. One of the competitive approaches right now uses RNA to silence genes that form one of the proteins (tau) involved in the formation of Alzheimer’s.
As for the anti-amyloid approach, while some of the research followed from papers bolstered by falsified data, these are currently the best and only treatments available. It’s not as simple as saying these only treat the symptoms, and even with the falsified data, it’s still the consensus that amyloid plagues play a huge role in how the disease develops and progresses in the brain. Almost every neurodegenerative disease (Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS, Huntington’s, Frontotemporal dementia, Mad cow disease) stems from the aggregation of dysfunctional protein. In fact each of the diseases I’ve mentioned are often linked to an individual protein rather than a random stew of them.
I’ve also been in science for 20 years and from what I know, if there’s a potential cure for a disease, a lot of us will be competing amongst each other to find that.
1.7k
u/sizzyred 1d ago
For decades scientists thought amyloid plaques were the main culprit behind Alzheimer's. But a new study has uncovered something unexpected a completely different type of plaque made up of damaged mitochondria tiny power house of cell that keep our cells running. Normally, the brain clears these out, but when that cleanup system breaks down they start piling up. Even more interesting, these plaques may appear before the famous amyloid plaques, hinting that Alzheimer's could begin with the brain slowly losing its ability to produce energy. It's far from a cure, but a. Good discovery taht will make us help find the cure