![\"This](\"https:\/\/blueheronhealthnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Cholesterol-357558179.jpg\")
An excess of cholesterol wreaks havoc in our blood vessels, and researchers have now discovered it causes Alzheimer\u2019s disease as well.<\/p>\nAn excess of cholesterol wreaks havoc in our blood vessels, and researchers have now discovered it causes Alzheimer\u2019s disease as well.<\/p>\n
Canadian researchers examined the brains of patients who had died of Alzheimer\u2019s disease, finding that Alzheimer\u2019s brains contained significantly more cholesterol than non-Alzheimer\u2019s brains.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s only half the story\u2026 They also discovered that Alzheimer\u2019s brains and healthy brains do very different things with cholesterol. <\/p>\n
And this may hold the key to finally cure Alzheimer\u2019s.<\/p>\n
The Canadian team found that Alzheimer\u2019s brains retained cholesterol while healthy brains metabolized it. This study appeared in the journal Neurobiology of Disease<\/em>.<\/p>\n A few years later, a different team published a study in Molecular Neurodegeneration in which they actually demonstrated what happened to neurons when they loaded cholesterol into their membranes.<\/p>\n These neurons immediately started resembling and behaving like neurons in Alzheimer\u2019s brains.<\/p>\n Compared to non-Alzheimer\u2019s neurons, Different genes were turned on and off, the transport of proteins in those neurons were blocked, and they secreted a lot more amyloid-beta42, a protein that appears in large amounts in Alzheimer\u2019s brains.<\/p>\n But at present researchers still don\u2019t understand the exact role that cholesterol plays in the development of the disease.<\/p>\n Until exact cause and effect relationships can be proven, it\u2019s best to drop cholesterol to healthy levels.<\/p>\n