From the first moment I discovered my dad
had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, it seemed like I was alone in this ugly
place. Even ones who had loved ones suffering in this way; even though people TALKED
about the disease, it felt for me like they did little more than mumble about the
experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I added a section to this
blog…
Every month, I’ll be highlighting Alzheimer’s
research that is going on RIGHT NOW! Harvested from different websites, journals
and podcasts, I’ll translate them into understandable English and share them
with you. Today: January 2, 2020…
“…‘amyloid theory’ took another hit earlier [this] week, when a study
in the journal Neurology concluded that early declines in
memory and thinking among Alzheimer's patients tend to occur before amyloid
plaques appear in the brain, not after.”
So what’s it all mean?
It means that decades of pursuit of a way to deal with amyloid plaques –
which had proven a dead end countless times – both in research and in
effectiveness (after much trumpeting that “This is it!”) like the monoclonal
antibody solanezumab, saracatinib, beta- and gamma-secretase inhibitors, verubecestat,
sargramostim (Leukine) – has now been declared a REALLY dead end as far as
treatment is concerned.
The thing to deal with now is tau proteins…
Which are, what, exactly?
According to Wikipedia, a tau protein “…are proteins that stabilize
microtubules. They are abundant in neurons of the central nervous system and
are less common elsewhere, but are also expressed at very low levels in CNS
astrocytes and oligodendrocytes.”
And now I can do what I do best; translate the doctors!
First of all, microtubules are found in cells. MOST of you remember
from high school biology that cells divide – they cut themselves in half to make
new cells. Fat cells are REALLY good at dividing (I know from personal
experience!) While that’s supposed to break the tension with a bit of self-deprecating
humor, it also segues nicely into an explanation of “oligodendrocytes” which is
a special cell that makes the “oily” coverings that go over the fibers that
connect nerves.
Whenever a cell is ready to split, it has to get its chromosomes in
order to that they go to the right places. Microtubules are the “strings” that
pull on the chromosomes and pull them apart that the two new cells get the
right stuff to grow NEWER cells.
Tau proteins help to make the microtubules work smoothly. You mostly
find them in the brain (Duh! If they WEREN’T there, then why would be
associated with Alzheimer’s?)
We’ve known all along that these tau proteins appeared to have tangled
up in the brains of people who died of Alzheimer’s complications. Most scientists
thought that while that was interesting, there wasn’t much they understood about
them.
Anyway, in a new kind of brain scan, shows that a buildup of these
proteins not ONLY mess with healthy cell division, they also tangle together in
places and it appears that “…toxic tau proteins drive brain degeneration in
Alzheimer's more directly than the disease's other hallmark, amyloid protein
plaques, the study authors said.” Post-doctoral fellow and lead researcher Renaud
La Joie, at the University of California, San Francisco, Weill Institute for
Neurosciences.
The scans also could allow doctors to predict how Alzheimer's will
affect individual patients, by tracking which brain regions have more
accumulated tau tangles. “…the location of tau buildup predicted which brain
regions would atrophy with more than 40% accuracy, the researchers said. On the
other hand, amyloid PET scans could only predict about 3% of future brain
degeneration.
“‘Where this abnormal tau builds up, it's evidence that something is
starting to go wrong in this brain region,’ La Joie said. ‘Amyloid is very
diffuse in the brain. Most patients have amyloid all over the place, including
in areas that remain at least healthy-looking and don't degenerate until very
late in the disease.’
“The results provide hope that new drugs that target tau tangles will
be able to help Alzheimer's patients…”
After this devaluation of the whole “sure approach to amyloid plaques”
and the development of failed drugs to attack them, I’m not holding my breath…but
I’m not giving up hope. At least for other people who are just now finding out
that they or their loved ones may be developing symptoms of Alzheimer’s.
Image: https://www.meduniwien.ac.at/web/fileadmin/_processed_/e/1/csm_shutterstock_142671010_4683b6bf13.jpg
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