Good News on the Alzheimer’s Front?

Two recent articles made me think that progress is being made in the fight against Alzheimer’s.  First I ran into an article in the Chicago Tribune on May 25, 2016 from a Harvard Health Blog post.  Decline in Dementia Rate Offers ‘Cautious Hope’ details a recent report from the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), Incidence of Dementia over Three Decades in the Framingham Heart Study which we blogged about on February 23, 2016. After discussing the study and its results, the article turns to the question of whether dementia can be prevented:

As the Alzheimer’s Association predicts, the numbers of people with dementia may ultimately increase simply because people are living longer. At the same time, the Framingham researchers offer “cautious hope that some cases of dementia may be prevented or at least delayed.”

The Framingham results bolster the notion that what’s good for the heart is good for the head. If you’re pursuing a heart-healthy lifestyle — following a Mediterranean-style diet, getting the equivalent of 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week, managing your stress, and engaging with friends and family — you’re likely lowering your risk of dementia in the bargain, too.

The other article also ran on May 25, 2016, this one in the New York Times.  It posits an intriguing question: Could Alzheimer’s Stem From Infections? It Makes Sense, Experts Say.  The article references a recent study by Harvard researchers,  Amyloid-β peptide protects against microbial infection in mouse and worm models of Alzheimer’s disease the results of which was published in Science Translational Medicine. The abstract is available here but the full article requires registration.

Here is how the study results are explained in the Times article

The Harvard researchers report a scenario seemingly out of science fiction. A virus, fungus or bacterium gets into the brain, passing through a membrane — the blood-brain barrier — that becomes leaky as people age. The brain’s defense system rushes in to stop the invader by making a sticky cage out of proteins, called beta amyloid. The microbe, like a fly in a spider web, becomes trapped in the cage and dies. What is left behind is the cage — a plaque that is the hallmark of Alzheimer’s.

The article provides a fascinating recap of how the researchers got to this point and notes that “[r]ecent data suggests that the incidence of dementia is decreasing. It could be because of better control of blood pressure and cholesterol levels, staving off ministrokes that can cause dementia. But could a decline in infections also be part of the picture?” The article concludes describing the next steps in this research.

So, good news on the Alzheimer’s front? You decide. (I vote yes).