Inflammation May Hold Key to Cognitive Decline in Alzheimer's Disease

A new study poses an intriguing question: Does gum disease accelerate cognitive decline in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease? The answer may be found in inflammation. Aging affects our immune system, and inflammation is a normal part of the body's immune response to infection or injury. Previous studies have shown that the inflammation response increases as we age. Inflammation is now linked to a number of diseases more common in people over age 65, including atherosclerosis, osteoarthritis and Alzheimer's. In a recent study, Professor Clive Holmes of the University of Southampton (UK), along with colleagues from King's College London, conducted cognitive assessments of 60 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease. They examined patients' dental health and took blood samples to measure inflammatory markers. They retested everyone in six months, and found that patients with gum disease had a six-fold rate of cognitive decline, along with an increase in systemic inflammation. Professor Holmes previously showed that the degree of systemic inflammation, as measured by an inflammatory molecule in the blood called TNF-alpha, correlated with the pace of cognitive decline in people with Alzheimer's disease. Indeed, many of the people who did not have elevated TNF-alpha in their blood did not decline at all during the study. In fact, we have known that inflammation is involved in the progression of Alzheimer's for many years, so why don't we have drugs to stop it? I...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news