Australian experts have discovered that the causes of Alzheimer's, a dangerous brain disease, actually start in the liver and reach the brain from there.
Alzheimer's disease causes brain cells to die faster and the brain to shrink. Eventually this process stops until the patient dies.
Until now, all we knew about Alzheimer's was that it was caused by the amyloid, a protein made in the brain that slowly kills brain cells.
However, the same proteins are also made in our liver, so an alternative hypothesis was that the amyloids made in the human liver may somehow reach our brain, where they cause Alzheimer's disease.
This hypothesis is also called "amyloid hypothesis", but so far we have no evidence.
In a new study on mice, experts at Curtin University in Bentley, Australia, developed a breed of mice that produced human amyloids in the liver, which reached the brain and increased the rate of cell death. His memory also began to fade quickly.
These are the specific symptoms that are associated with the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
Thus, at least in mice, it has been proven that the liver plays a greater role in the onset of Alzheimer's than the brain.
The same team of experts is now preparing human observations so that the amyloid hypothesis can be finalized for humans as well.
If this proves to be true in humans, the liver can also be considered in the prevention and possible treatment of Alzheimer's.
Note: This research is published in the latest issue of the online research journal PLoS Biology.
