People who suffer from multiple sclerosis are much more likely to develop Alzheimer’s, according to a recent US study.
The news could hardly be seen as good news – instead it seems like an irony of nature. The truth, however, is that the discovery made by researchers from the medical school of the American University of Washington in St. Louis could lead to the discovery of new strategies to deal with the painful Alzheimer’s.
The discovery suggests a new avenue of research for potential treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, said Dr. Matthew Brier, assistant professor of neurology and radiology and lead author of the study, according to Take care of yourself.
Scientists believe that there is something in the genetics of patients with this condition that protects them from this type of dementia.
“If we could identify which side is immune and apply it in a controlled way, this could lead to therapeutic strategies for Alzheimer’s disease,” said the author of the study recently published by Annals of Neurology.
Scientists came to this conclusion after decades of treating patients with multiple sclerosis (which attacks the nervous system). Although the patients lived long enough to be at risk for Alzheimer’s or had a family history of the neurodegenerative disease, they did not develop the disease.
The researchers also found that the more normal a patient’s history of multiple sclerosis was in terms of age of onset, severity and overall course of the disease, the more likely they were to accumulate amyloid plaques, typical of Alzheimer’s, in his brain.
This suggests that there is something about the nature of multiple sclerosis that protects against Alzheimer’s disease, which the researchers aim to investigate further.
2024-08-26 21:06:00
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