New research suggests red wine could be an effective weapon against Alzheimer's.
"The major genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD), present in about two-thirds of people who develop the disease, is ApoE4, the cholesterol-carrying protein that about a quarter of us are born with," a Buck Institute news release reported.
The research team found a link between ApoE4 and SirT1, and "anti-aging protein", which can be "targeted" with a substance in red wine called resveratrol.
"The biochemical mechanisms that link ApoE4 to Alzheimer's disease have been something of a black box. However, recent work from a number of labs, including our own, has begun to open the box," Dale Bredesen, MD, founding CEO of the Buck Institute, said.
The team noticed that the presence of ApoE4 reduced SirT1 levels, which also reduced that anti-aging factor.
People who had a presence of ApoE4 and suffered from AD often had other abnormalities such as their bodies creating phospho-tau and amyloid-beta. The team found this phenomenon could be reduced as well with SirT1.
"This research offers a new type of screen for Alzheimer's prevention and treatment," Rammohan V. Rao, PhD, co-author of the study, and an Associate Research Professor at the Buck, said. "One of our goals is to identify a safe, non-toxic treatment that could be given to anyone who carries the ApoE4 gene to prevent the development of AD."
Over five million people in the U.S. alone suffer from Alzheimer's. Preventative treatments are crucial for the 2.5 percent of the population that hold two genes for ApoE4 that put them at a 10 times higher risk of developing the condition than those who do not carry the genes.
"The group hopes that the current work will identify simple, safe therapeutics that can be given to ApoE4 carriers to prevent the development of Alzheimer's disease," the news release reported.
