STOCKHOLM, Sweden—High cholesterol levels in midlife and lack of antioxidants could render people more susceptible to develop Alzheimer’s disease, said a study published in a doctoral thesis from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet.
The study found that mice fed a diet rich in fat, sugar and cholesterol for nine months developed a preliminary stage of the morbid irregularities that form in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. The study results give some indications of how this difficult-to-treat disease might one day be preventable.
“On examining the brains of these mice, we found a chemical change not unlike that found in the Alzheimer brain,” said researcher Susanne Akterin, a postgraduate at KI Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.
The change was an increase in phosphate groups attached to tau, a substance that forms the neurofibrillary tangles observed in Alzheimer’s patients. These tangles prevent the cells from functioning normally, which eventually leads to their death. Akterin and her team also noted indications that cholesterol in food reduced levels of another brain substance, Arc, a protein involved in memory storage.
“We now suspect that a high intake of fat and cholesterol in combination with genetic factors, such as apoE4, can adversely affect several brain substances, which can be a contributory factor in the development of Alzheimer’s,” she said.