Traditional Alzheimer’s research is mostly focused on genetic factors. Little notice is unfortunately paid to diet and other lifestyle choices.
This is about to change.
Scientists from University of Bath and King’s College in London recently discovered one specific ingredient that plants the seeds for Alzheimer’s. They also mapped the exact process by which this bad diet choice helps the disease grow.
Even more urgently, cutting out this ingredient may eliminate Alzheimer’s for good.
Researchers examined samples of brain matter from people with and without Alzheimer’s via a technique (fluorescent phenylboronate gel electrophoresis) that is sensitive enough to reveal the damage high blood sugar causes to proteins and immune cells.
When sugar (or glucose) riches your bloodstream, many of its molecules bind to protein molecules in a process called glycation.
Not only can glycation damage proteins in this way, but the byproducts of the glycation process are often harmful to our bodies as well.
Some previous studies, such as one published by German and Australian researchers in the journal Biochimica et Biophysica Acta in 1997, have found that beta-amyloid, one of the proteins that seem to form plaques in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease sufferers, are mostly a byproduct created during the process of glycation.
That already suggests that an excess of dietary sugar can contribute to Alzheimer’s disease, as it makes glycation more likely.
But the London and Bath researchers discovered another extremely harmful effect of glycation.
At the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, glycation damages an enzyme called macrophage migration inhibitory factor (or MIF).
MIF enzymes are a part of your immune system. When abnormal proteins start to build up in your brain, these MIF enzymes are supposed to be part of the response to remove them and/or to limit the potential damage.
This is how Alzheimer’s disease manages to get going. Glycation damages your MIF enzymes, and your damaged MIF enzymes are then incapable of playing their role of preventing abnormal protein plaques to form all over your brain.
In other words, if you eat too many simple sugars that build up as glucose in your bloodstream, glycation becomes more likely.
When glycation occurs in your brain, you are at serious risk of Alzheimer’s disease.