“This finding is significant because it suggests that improving blood flow to the brain might be an effective therapeutic approach to prevent or treat Alzheimer’s,” said the study’s primary author, Robert Vassar, a professor of cell and molecular biology at Northwestern’s Feinberg School School of Medicine.

The study shows that a brain not getting enough sugar glucose launches a process ultimately producing sticky clumps of protein thought to be related to causing Alzheimer’s. This glucose lack can happen in those suffering from cardiovascular disease that restricts arterial blood flow to the brain.

Specifically, a deficient supply of energy to the brain alters a protein, called eIF2alpha, and that in turn boosts production of an enzyme that “flips a switch” starting production of the sticky clumps, Vassar said. His research was conducted on human and mice brains and was published in the journal Neuron.

The good news is relatively simple preventive measures can improve blood flow to the brain. The measures include:

• getting exercise
• reducing cholesterol
• managing hypertension.

“If people start early enough, maybe they can dodge the bullet,” Vassar said, adding that for those already showing symptoms of the reduced blood flow, vasodilators, which increase it, could boost oxygen and glucose delivery to the brain.

It was Vassar who 10 years ago found the enzyme that triggers formation of the sticky clumps of protein outside neurons that disrupt the neuron’s message-transmitting ability. What causes the dangerous levels of the protein has not been known. This study points to energy deprivation as a possible trigger.

Funding Vassar’s research were the National Institute on Aging, the MetLife Foundation and Northwestern University.

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