Scientists have found a reasonable explanation for the starting of Alzheimer’s disease in the human brain. For many years, Alzheimer’s disease has been a big mystery for scientists: it is mostly unknown how it’s triggered in the human brain, what causes it and how can the horrible disease be treated. All we know for sure is that it’s probably the most horrendous disease of all since it zaps patients of their most precious things: memory and intelligence.
Alzheimer’s disease cure might soon become a reality thanks to new research
A cure for Alzheimer’s disease requires first of all for scientists to understand what exactly is causing the disease to appear in a human’s brain, what other things except the next and natural thing of that man or woman getting old. Steven Clarke, a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry, confirms to us that recent studies couldn’t provide excellent results and that he is open to new ideas.
Therefore, a team of scientists recently tried to find answers in the past, since 2019, modern medicine can’t seem to find accurate solutions to fight the horrible disease. They studied an old report from the journal Nature from 14 years ago, done by UCLA Professor David Eisenberg and a team of molecular biologists, which states that a harmful molecular zipper causes the death of neurons as a reaction to beta-amyloid which has a specific amino acid that can form a kink.
The old study also claimed that this dry molecular zipper is in the fibrils that form in Alzheimer’s disease, as well as in Parkinson’s disease, and many other degenerative diseases. Therefore the hypothesis seems to be pretty reasonable, and recent studies support it.
Steven Clarke, who has researched the biochemistry of the brain and Alzheimer’s disease since 1990, said that the kink formed by one of the beta amyloid’s amino acids could lead to faster growth of the fibrils that have been linked to Alzheimer’s disease. He goes on by saying the following: “This second molecular zipper is double trouble. Once it’s zipped, it’s zipped, and once the formation of fibrils starts, it looks like you can’t stop it. The kinked form initiates a dangerous cascade of events that we believe can result in Alzheimer’s disease.”.
A new study may show what is going wrong in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease
Of course, you may wonder why our bodies allow such dangerous kink to be made by one of the beta amyloid’s amino acids. Well, the good news is that the outstanding human body has a protein repair enzyme that fixes the kink, as Clarke himself confirms, but it just likes to skip its job sometimes.
“As we get older, maybe the repair enzyme misses the repair once or twice. The repair enzyme might be 99.9% effective, but over 60 years or more, the kinks eventually build up. If not repaired or if degraded in time, the kink can spread to virtually every neuron and can do tremendous damage.”, says the professor Steven Clarke. He also added that there’s other good news: we know the problem. Therefore humanity can think about ways to solve it.
The significant protein tau, which has 750 amino acids and it’s present in all humans, also plays an essential role in triggering the Alzheimer disease in the human brain, as scientists proved in the recent years. Steven Clarke also acknowledges that, concluding that the tau protein and the beta-amyloid work together in a most mysterious way to form fibrils and spread them to many neurons, damaging the brain and causing Alzheimer dementia.
Will anybody be able to find a way for perhaps improving the repair enzyme so that the tau protein and the beta-amyloid will not do their dirty job anymore? Of course, the scientific community has a long road to go even to fathom the idea that we can know to cure anybody with Alzheimer completely, but it certainly is worth searching for answers.
