As the leading cause of senile dementia, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) constitutes a big burden on the health care system and causes much pain to the patients and their families. The prevalence of AD is expected to triple by the year 2050. A growing body of evidence suggests that AD is associated with protein misfolding and aggregation in the brain, such as accumulation of amyloid and tau.
Previous studies have linked midlife vascular risk factors such as obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and smoking to late-life dementia. But whether these factors directly contribute to brain amyloid deposition remains a mystery. Now, a study appearing in JAMA shows that many midlife vascular risk factors indeed associated with with elevated brain amyloid.
The study was led by a team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Wake Forest School of Medicine, and several other institutions. The team analyzed data from 346 patients with dementia. Vascular risk factors including body mass index, current smoking, hypertension, diabetes, and total cholesterol were evaluated. The patients’ age, sex, race, APOE genotype, and educational level were also taken into account. These analyses highlighted the role of midlife vascular risk factors in formation of amyloid deposition.
The most common cause of dementia, AD, often affects the elderly. Due to population ageing, it is estimated that the incidence of AD will increase sharply, which would place a heavy burden on the health care system. If we can better elucidate the biology of dementia, it may lead to new avenues for treating and even preventing the debilitating disease and improve improve life quality of patients. (Cusabio offers amyloid, tau, and other molecules like Recombinant NPY1R.)
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