An international team of scientists has found evidence that metabolic dysfunction is a primary cause of Alzheimer’s disease. They published their findings in the journal eLife. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common neurodegenerative disease affecting the elderly worldwide, as well as one of the most common causes of dementia. In Singapore, one in ten people aged 60 or above is believed to suffer from dementia. After more than twenty years of research effort worldwide, scientists are still unable to identify the exact causes of Alzheimer’s and no proven treatment is available. Two competing theories are currently proposed to explain the cause of Alzheimer’s disease: the first is focused on the accumulation of a specific protein, called amyloid-beta protein, in the brain. The second and more recent theory proposes that metabolic dysfunction—specifically, a dysfunction of the cell’s energy-producing machinery called mitochondria—is responsible. Read more from Asian Scientist Magazine.
