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[infinitys_7th]

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...ow-what-causes-alzheimers-and-how-to-stop-it/

The disease often involves the accumulation of proteins called amyloid and tau in the brain, and the leading hypothesis has been that the disease arises from defective control of these two proteins.

But research in recent years has revealed that people can have amyloid plaques without having dementia. So many efforts to treat Alzheimer’s by moderating these proteins have failed that the hypothesis has been seriously questioned.

However evidence has been growing that the function of amyloid proteins may be as a defence against bacteria, leading to a spate of recent studies looking at bacteria in Alzheimer’s, particularly those that cause gum disease, which is known to be a major risk factor for the condition.

Bacteria involved in gum disease and other illnesses have been found after death in the brains of people who had Alzheimer’s, but until now, it hasn’t been clear whether these bacteria caused the disease or simply got in via brain damage caused by the condition.

Up until now, plaques forming in the brain were thought to be the cause of Alzheimer's. Medications and treatments designed to target those plaques have had low efficacy, so other causes were investigated. It now appears that the toxins produced by the bacteria which causes gingivitis actually cause the disease (and make the plaques form as a defense mechanism).

Dental health is really important - poor dental hygiene can lead to heart disease and other diseases throughout your body by giving bacteria a path to various organ systems, so I'm not surprised by this development. Hopefully this leads to a cure for one of the most miserable diseases a person can have (I'd argue far worse than most cancers). The possibility of a vaccine against the bacteria which could be given to children is even better.

 

[Rentahamster]

Are higher rates of gum disease correlated with higher rates of Alzheimers?

 

[infinitys_7th]

Are higher rates of gum disease correlated with higher rates of Alzheimers?

That is not presented in this, but mouse trials have show an actual cause and effect between the presence of the bacteria, and their toxins, and Alzheimer's symptoms:

Multiple research teams have been investigating P. gingivalis, and have so far found that it invades and inflames brain regions affected by Alzheimer’s; that gum infections can worsen symptoms in mice genetically engineered to have Alzheimer’s; and that it can cause Alzheimer’s-like brain inflammation, neural damage, and amyloid plaques in healthy mice.

“When science converges from multiple independent laboratories like this, it is very compelling,” says Casey Lynch of Cortexyme, a pharmaceutical firm in San Francisco, California.

In the new study, Cortexyme have now reported finding the toxic enzymes – called gingipains – that P. gingivalis uses to feed on human tissue in 96 per cent of the 54 Alzheimer’s brain samples they looked at, and found the bacteria themselves in all three Alzheimer’s brains whose DNA they examined.

“This is the first report showing P. gingivalis DNA in human brains, and the associated gingipains, co-lococalising with plaques,” says Sim Singhrao, of the University of Central Lancashire, UK. Her team previously found that P. gingivalis actively invades the brains of mice with gum infections. She adds that the new study is also the first to show that gingipains slice up tau protein in ways that could allow it to kill neurons, causing dementia.

The bacteria and its enzymes were found at higher levels in those who had experienced worse cognitive decline, and had more amyloid and tau accumulations. The team also found the bacteria in the spinal fluid of living people with Alzheimer’s, suggesting that this technique may provide a long-sought after method of diagnosing the disease.

When the team gave P. gingivalis gum disease to mice, it led to brain infection, amyloid production, tangles of tau protein, and neural damage in the regions and nerves normally affected by Alzheimer’s.

Cortexyme had previously developed molecules that block gingipains. Giving some of these to mice reduced their infections, halted amyloid production, lowered brain inflammation and even rescued damaged neurons.

The team found that an antibiotic that killed P. gingivalis did this too, but less effectively, and the bacteria rapidly developed resistance. They did not resist the gingipain blockers. “This provides hope of treating or preventing Alzheimer’s disease one day,” says Singhrao.

It sounds like it is a cumulative-damage type of thing, except rather than it being from the plaques accumulating it is from bad dental hygiene allowing bacteria to get into the nervous system over time. There is probably a certain bacterial load/amount of stress from the toxins the body can handle, but beyond that you get damage which leads to Alzheimer's over decades.

It'd be interesting to see if there was any correlation between dentures and Alzheimer's.

 

[Cunth]

I do one of those at least

 

[YayNJ]

Please take "cure" out of the title, its misleading.

 

[infinitys_7th]

Please take "cure" out of the title, its misleading.

It's really not, though. If this is the case, Alzheimer's is a progressive disease, and keeping up good hygiene will help prevent the bacteria from growing in your mouth and ever reaching your brain.

The true cure, of course, is the gingipain blockers and/or antibiotics to kill the bacteria in the brain after Alzheimer's symptoms hit, but those symptoms are probably not 100% reversible once they do hit. Prevention is a better cure, in this case. Kill the bacteria and limit their growth in the mouth before they can make their way to the brain.

 

[Omega Supreme Holopsicon]

It's really not, though. If this is the case, Alzheimer's is a progressive disease, and keeping up good hygiene will help prevent the bacteria from growing in your mouth and ever reaching your brain.

The true cure, of course, is the gingipain blockers and/or antibiotics to kill the bacteria in the brain after Alzheimer's symptoms hit, but those symptoms are probably not 100% reversible once they do hit. Prevention is a better cure, in this case. Kill the bacteria and limit their growth in the mouth before they can make their way to the brain.

What I've heard is that those with massive education, can, in their later ages. sustain substantial neurodegeneration damage and still be mostly asymptomatic in many cases. Even if they do get Alzheimer's they can often reach the end of their lives without suffering the consequences of the disease.

So part of the problem is level of knowledge and education too

Neuritic plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, the neuropathological hallmarks of AD, are not limited to individuals with dementia. These pathologic changes can also be present in the brains of cognitively normal older adults – a condition we defined as Asymptomatic AD (ASYMAD). Although it remains unclear whether these individuals would remain clinically normal with longer survival, they seem to be able to compensate for or delay the appearance of dementia symptoms. Here, we provide a historical background and highlight the combined clinical, pathologic and morphometric evidence related to ASYMAD. Understanding the nature of changes during this apparently asymptomatic state may shed light on the mechanisms that forestall the progression of the disease and allow for maintenance of cognitive health, an important area of research that has been understudied relative to the identification of risks and pathways to negative health outcomes. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3286868/

In 10 individuals whose plaque counts were 80% of those with dementia, Katzman and colleagues [33] found cognitive performance as good as or better than the performance of the upper quintile of those free of AD[Alzheimer's disease] neuropathology. Hulette and colleagues
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3286868/

The idea of reserve against brain damage was born from the observations of functional preservation in the face of damage or pathology and it can manifest as either cognitive or brain reserve. Cognitive reserve refers to flexibility and efficiency of use of available brain reserve and is often proxied by education, IQ, and more recently literacy, occupational attainment, engagement in leisure activities, and the integrity of social networks. Brain reserve refers to quantitative measures of brain integrity, such as size or neuronal count. In the Nun Study, Iacono and colleagues [71] reported two observations that appear to link ASYMAD with cognitive reserve. First, significantly higher idea density scores reflecting linguistic abilities in early life were observed in controls and the ASYMAD group compared to MCI and AD. Second, the ASYMAD group had significantly more years of education (master degree) compared to MCI or AD (bachelor degree). Although the study by Iacono and colleagues [71] hints at potential protective properties of cognitive reserve against the negative effects of AD pathology, much work is clearly needed in this area of future research.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3286868/

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

Very happy that we're finding more information about how to control/prevent this disease. I've lost family to it and it ain't pretty. Worse than cancer, IMO.

 

[Mohonky]

I work in a nursing home and regularly work with residents who range from early stages of dementia right through to palliative; dementia is honestly an absolutely horrible disease.

If these findings are true, while great, it unfortunately won't rid us of dementia as there are many different types

 

[Sqorin Hammerfarf]

I've lost family to it and it ain't pretty. Worse than cancer, IMO.

Same. I’m a firm believer in assisted suicide because of it.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

To go along with the topic, Lion's Mane mushroom appears to help with cognitive degeneration and shows promise as a preventative/treatment of dementia. There are compounds in some mushrooms (especially in Lion's Mane) that are neuro-regenerative. Exciting stuff.

I'm not a believer in quack medicine. Lots of bad info out there. However, the concept of "food as medicine" and doing what you can to reduce inflammation is getting corroborated by medical science as we learn more about human disease.

 

[Skyr]

Very happy that we're finding more information about how to control/prevent this disease. I've lost family to it and it ain't pretty. Worse than cancer, IMO.

It's the goddamn worst man. I saw my grandpa go down by it. In the end he didn't even recognize my mom and his other daughters.
It was the worst for my grandma who had to take care for him during his vegetative state.

 

[Sqorin Hammerfarf]

Reading the article, I had a thought. It says that dementia has skyrocketed - but if proper dental hygiene could cure it, surely the rate of dementia (due to gum disease) should be dropping as more people brush their teeth and use mouthwash now than ever before. People didn't even brush their teeth regularly until this past century, and only did that because they added mint to the toothpaste in a marketing move.

I read that childhood leukemia is actually a one two punch of damage done while in the womb mixed with an immature immune system caused extensively by the presence of antibacterial soap and overly clean houses. Childhood leukemia is rising about 1% ever year, almost exclusively in a well to do neighborhoods because they are so clean that the children aren't exposed to the wealth of bacteria necessary to improve their immune system.

I've also read articles about the importance of good gut bacteria and how a lack of it can lead to depression and other mental illnesses. Using antiseptic mouthwash kills all the bacteria in your mouth, good and bad, and if you ever swallow it, it can wreck havoc on your digestive bacteria. I think the articles I read recommended eating two cups of yogurt a day (the study compared to two yogurts a day to a control group who ate no yogurt and show a drastic improvement in the yogurt eaters). According to the Wikipedia page on Porphyromonas gingivalis,"Though it is found in low abundance in the oral cavity, it causes a microbial shift of the oral cavity, allowing for uncontrolled growth of the commensal microbial community."

Anyway, my point is, it may not be a problem with the presence of this bacteria so much as our body's inability to properly fight it off, which could be the result of keeping our mouths too clean. So, maybe the solution isn't to brush our teeth more, but to brush them less but eating more yogurt? Flossing should still be okay, I would assume.

Also, I'm sure there is a good Warhammer 40k joke about tau invading your brain...

 

[MoFuzz]

So, controlling dental plaque through good hygiene helps reduce the likelihood of amyloid plaques?

Not sure about the rest of you, but I'll definitely be doing my part to end plaque on plaque grime.

 

[bitbydeath]

Sounds like a scam to try get me to clean my teeth. I’m not falling for it though.