Canadian doctors show that blood flow can spread Alzheimer's disease
Thread starter Abrin
Abrin
Not ME/CFS related per say but I found this very interesting because of the concept of something originating in other parts of the body and then traveling to the brain.
[article=http://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/newborn-swab-warning-bats-have-dialects-iceberg-music-and-more-1.4383667/canadian-doctors-show-that-blood-flow-can-spread-alzheimer-s-disease-1.4383808]The disease Alzheimer's is the leading cause of dementia worldwide. The incurable disease slowly impairs cognitive function, such as the ability to think and remember. Because of these devastating effects on the brain, it has long been assumed that Alzheimer's originates in the brain. But new research has found that Alzheimer's might be a disease that originates in other parts of the body and travels to the brain.
The breakthrough
Amyloid-beta is a protein linked to Alzheimer's disease. It is present in all healthy people, but when it builds up or becomes over-produced in the brain, it becomes toxic and starts to inflict the type of damage associated with Alzheimer's. But amyloid-beta is found throughout the body, not just the brain. It exists in many other body parts including the liver and kidneys, spinal fluid and muscles. In the experiment, Dr. Weihong Song, a Professor of Psychiatry and Canada Research Chair in Alzheimer's at the University of British Columbia, fused two mice together so that they shared the same blood supply for several months. One mouse was completely normal; the other was modified to carry a mutant human gene that produces high levels of amyloid-beta. After a period of time, the amyloid-beta from the modified mouse had travelled to the brain of the normal mouse, where it began to create damage. The experiment demonstrated the ability of amyloid-beta to travel, similar to cancer, from one part of the body to the brain.
In the future, the treatment of Alzheimer's disease may begin in other parts of the body, apart from the brain. A build up of amyloid-beta in the liver or kidneys for example may be easier to treat than a similar accumulation in the brain. Now that it is known that amyloid-beta can travel throught the blood-brain barrier like this, Alheimer's drugs of the future may also target other places in the body. [/article]
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Interesting research. And thanks, @Abrin, for demonstrating use of the "Insert Article" feature. I must remember to use this.
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Go down to page 8 (p. 646), and look at the picture and caption. I've heard this before from many sources, that the pattern of location of amyloid plaque and location of a pathogen, usually Lyme, is uncannily similar. It's easy to find more pictures like this, Dr. Horowitz's book has one too.
[article]Fig. 4. Illustration of the striking similarity of the agglomeration of spirochetes in the cerebral cortex in case AD1 with positive Lyme serology and in general paresis. Compare the similarity of the silver impregnation pattern when using a modified Bielschowsky stain for senile plaques (A) or using a silver impregnation technique for spiro-chetes (Warthin and Starry) (B) in the cerebral cortex of case AD1and in a case of general paresis (C). The permission for reproduction of figure C was kindly provided by Springer-Verlag publisher and corresponds to Fig. 4 of Jahnel (Abb. 4. 1929[/article] Source: https://www.scribd.com/document/255656123/tmpE33A-tmp
The article insert works better without images though.
There may be more than one pathogen that does this. And when you google just the word "amyloid" it can be applied to a lot of things (for instance angiopathy). It might be a mechanism for the body to protect itself, which is taken advantage of by certain pathogens. If so, then limiting the body's ability to make it might help with one thing and worsen another.
[article]Reports of associations between infection and AD are not confined to spirochetes. The presence of Herpes virus type 1 (HSV-1) in the AD brain has been reported [17,18,20]. Chlamydia pneumoniae was also found to be associated with AD. Mice exposed to Chlamydia developed AD-like amyloid plaques[2,23][/article]
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