Infection Induced Systemic Inflammation as a Contributing Cause of Alzheimer ' s Disease

The big question regarding Alzheimer's disease has always been why only some people suffer this form of dementia. While being overweight clearly increases the risk of dementia, and it is easy to argue that this is because of the chronic inflammation generated by visceral fat tissue, not every overweight individual progresses to the point of Alzheimer's disease. Some people who are not overweight suffer Alzheimer's disease. The condition starts with rising levels of amyloid-β aggregates forming in the brain, thought to be a progressive process occurring over a decade or more prior to any clinical symptoms, but why does this only happen to some people? The attractive nature of the various infection hypotheses of Alzheimer's disease is that they can answer this question. Only some people with the relevant risk factors suffer Alzheimer's disease because exposure to infectious agents over a lifetime, particularly those that persist in the body, such as various herpesviruses, or lyme spirochetes, is a matter of chance, only loosely related to physical characteristics. In recent years, researchers have identified amyloid-β as an antimicrobial peptide, a part of the innate immune response to pathogens. In this context it makes sense for infection, particularly persistent infection, to be driving the raised levels of amyloid-β necessary to develop Alzheimer's disease. In today's open access paper, the authors have a different emphasis on infection, suggesting that it ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs