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A new American study may have finally discovered the elusive cause of Alzheimer's disease: Porphyromonas gingivalis the main bacterium responsible for chronic gum disease.
one third of the population. The good thing is that a drug that blocks the main toxins of P.
The Hypothesis
Alzheimer's Disease, one of the greatest mysteries of medicine , is one of the most mysterious. Dementia is now the fifth leading cause of death in the world and Alzheimer 's disease is responsible for about 70% of these cases.
However, we do not know what is the cause. The disease often involves the accumulation of proteins called amyloid and tau in the brain. Therefore, the main hypothesis was that the disease resulted from an imbalance between these two substances.
But research done in recent years has shown that people can have amyloid plaque buildup without dementia. In addition, many efforts have shown that the function of amyloid proteins can be a defense against bacteria, which has led to many studies on bacteria.
who could be involved in Alzheimer's disease. This is how the researchers found that those who caused gum disease seemed to be an important risk factor for the disease.
P. gingivalis
Several bacteria, including those implicated in gum disease, have been found in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease after death.
In the beginning, scientists did not know if these bacteria were causing disease or simply reaching the organ
Separate studies examined the role of P. Infections Gum disease may aggravate the symptoms of Alzheimer's in the rat
- The bacteria invade and inflate the regions affected by Alzheimer's disease
- neuronal lesions and amyloid plaques in healthy rats.
This evidence, from different laboratories, converges to suggest that
A new study by Cortexyme, a California pharmaceutical company, revealed the toxic enzymes that P. play an important role in the disease. Gingivalis used to feed human tissue, called gingivins, on 96% of the 54 Alzheimer's brain samples badyzed
Scientists also discovered the bacteria in three brains of Alzheimer's whose DNA they examined.
Bacteria and their enzymes have been discovered at higher levels in individuals with more severe cognitive decline and with more accumulations of amyloid and tau.
The team still found the bacterium in the cerebrospinal fluid of living with Alzheimer's disease, suggesting that this technique could provide a long-standing method of research for the disease .
In another experiment, the mice team infected with cortexyma with P. gingivalis and observed that the bacterium resulted in brain infection, amyloid production, protein entanglements tau and neural lesions in regions and nerves normally affected by Alzheimer's disease.
Gingivines. Once the mice were treated with them, it reduced infections, disrupted amyloid production, decreased brain inflammation and even healed damaged neurons.
The team discovered that an antibiotic that kills P. gingivalis achieved similar but less effective results, as the bacterium quickly developed resistance to it. However, they did not resist gingivine blockers
We found the cure?
Gum infections are much more common than Alzheimer's disease. This disease may attack people who accumulate gingivitis and damage the brain quickly enough to develop symptoms during their lifetime. At the end of this year, the company will launch a major drug test, looking for P. gingivalis in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients and looking for cognitive improvements before and after the administration of blockers.
The company is also considering testing it for gum disease. Another team in Melbourne, Australia, developed a vaccine against P. gingivalis for this purpose and the tests have already begun. If this vaccine against gum disease is also able to stop Alzheimer's disease, the impact will be enormous.
An article on cortex research has been published in the science journal Science Advances. [NewScientist]
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