A new study poses an intriguing question: Does gum disease accelerate cognitive decline in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease? The answer may be found in inflammation dental scaling machine. A...

Inflammation May Hold Key to Cognitive Decline in Alzheimer’s Disease

Biglietti eventi postato da lilyeven12 || 6 anni fa

A new study poses an intriguing question: Does gum disease accelerate cognitive decline in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease? The answer may be found in inflammation dental scaling machine. Aging affects our immune system, and inflammation is a normal part of the body’s immune response to infection or injury. Previous studies have shown that the inflammation response increases as we age. Inflammation is now linked to a number of diseases more common in people over age 65, including atherosclerosis, osteoarthritis and Alzheimer’s. In a recent study, Professor Clive Holmes of the University of Southampton (UK), along with colleagues from King’s College London, conducted cognitive assessments of 60 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease. They examined patients’ dental health and took blood samples to measure inflammatory markers. They retested everyone in six months, and found that patients with gum disease had a six-fold rate of cognitive decline, along with an increase in systemic inflammation. Professor Holmes previously showed that the degree of systemic inflammation, as measured by an inflammatory molecule in the blood called TNF-alpha, correlated with the pace of cognitive decline in people with Alzheimer’s disease water picker. Indeed, many of the people who did not have elevated TNF-alpha in their blood did not decline at all during the study. In fact, we have known that inflammation is involved in the progression of Alzheimer’s for many years, so why don’t we have drugs to stop it? In the early 2000s, studies showed that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen were able to reduce neuroinflammation and the accumulation of beta-amyloid plaques in mice. At around the same time, analyses of health patterns in humans showed a correlation between taking NSAIDs and a significantly reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s. Based on these findings, researchers initiated clinical trials for Alzheimer’s with various NSAIDs and other drugs known to reduce inflammation, including corticosteroids. The National Institute on Aging (NIA) funded the “ADAPT” study, involving 2,400 volunteer participants given naproxen, ibuprofen or a placebo dental supplies. In all, 16 clinical trials of drugs targeting inflammation to treat Alzheimer’s were undertaken.