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Energy dysfunction detected in skin cells a possible additional explanation of the Alzheimer’s disease’s hallmark Dementia

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

A team at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital tested the cells of late-onset Alzheimer’s patients and found malfunctions in their energy production, including problems with the health of their mitochondria, the cellular power plants that provide most of their energy.

The brain, because it is the body’s most energy-hungry organ, demanding as much as 20 times the energy of other tissues. Such a malfunction, he said, could damage or kill nerve cells and help explain the cognitive decline associated with the disease.

McLean researchers detect dysfunction in cells’ energy production in late-onset patients

“Although people hope with a lot of these conditions we study — normal or abnormal — that there are going to be simple answers … it’s never simple, it’s always all kinds of factors interacting to determine whether you get lucky or not, whether you get sick or not,” Cohen said.

The next step, Cohen said, will be to do a similar study on the neurons and other brain cells of Alzheimer’s patients, to see whether the energy dysfunction detected in skin cells is replicated there. Even if medical understanding of the disease remains imperfect, Cohen said the ultimate hope is to find an intervention that interrupts Alzheimer’s most devastating effects.

“You don’t have to fix everything to keep somebody from getting sick,” Cohen said. “The reason somebody gets sick is you’re unlucky five different ways and it all combines to tip you over the edge. Maybe you only need to fix one of them and you don’t tip over the edge anymore.”

SOURCE

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/11/new-clues-to-alzheimers-disease/

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