Medical Discovery News
Science permeates everyday life. Yet the understanding of advances in biomedical science is limited at best. Few people make the connection that biomedical science is medicine and that biomedical scientists are working today for the medicine of tomorrow. Our weekly five-hundred-word newspaper column (http://www.illuminascicom.com/) and two-minute radio show provide insights into a broad range of biomedical science topics. Medical Discovery News is dedicated to explaining discoveries in biomedical research and their promise for the future of medicine. Each release is designed to stimulate listeners to think, question and appreciate how science affects their health as well as that of the rest of the world. We also delve into significant biomedical discoveries and portray how science (or the lack of it) has impacted health throughout history.
Medical Discovery News
Another Possible Cause of Alzheimer's
934 Another Cause of Alzheimer’s?
Welcome to Medical Discovery News. I’m Dr. Norbert Herzog.
And I’m Dr. David Niesel
In nineteen o-six, a psychiatrist, Alois Alzheimer described to a group of German physicians a peculiar patient he had been treating.
The woman developed paranoia that progressed quickly, and that was the first description of what we now call Alzheimer’s disease or AD, aptly named after him.
After she died, Alzheimer did an autopsy and found abnormal patterns we now know as plaques and neurofibrillary tangles that may contribute to AD.
Another feature of her brain was fat droplet accumulation within glial cells which support and protect neurons. Researchers are now studying these fat droplet because treatments on plaques and tangles mostly haven’t worked well.
Scientists already know that some variants of a gene for proteins involved in the transport of fats are risk factors for AD. They’re linked to greater fat deposits in the glial cells and in mouse studies, that led to cell dysfunction.
A new study worked with human AD brain cells and one of the gene variants. When neurons in a petri dish were treated with media from glial cells that contain the fat droplets, it seemed to alter the tau protein that causes the tangles seen in Alzheimer’s.
Now scientists wonder whether the protein that produces plaque in the brain induces fat droplet accumulation in glial cells. The glial cells then produce a secretion that’s toxic to neurons causing them to degenerate.
Targeting this process might help scientists make more headway into Alzheimer’s which affects millions of people while treatments have mostly stalled.
We are Drs. David Niesel and Norbert Herzog, at UTMB and Quinnipiac University, where biomedical discoveries shape the future of medicine. For much more and our disclaimer go to medicaldiscoverynews.com or subscribe to our podcast. Sign up for expanded print episodes at www.illuminascicom.com
