Amyloid Alzheimer’s Blood Stream

Does Alzheimer’s Travel to the Brain
From Other Parts of the Body?

There are many reasons and causes of Alzheimer’s. My two books on the brain (Outsmarting the Dementia Epidemic and Super Brain) talk about the primary factors involved. The connection between Amyloid, Alzheimer’s, & Blood Stream is an example of this whole body causal chain. Amyloid plaques are associated with Alzheimer’s in postmortem studies. But amyloid is produced in other parts of your body and can travel via your blood stream to the brain.

A study published in October suggests that the disease might not start in the brain at all.

Our own blood could carry Alzheimer’s-linked amyloid proteins to the brain from other areas of the body to kick-start the disease process.

Amyloid Alzheimer’s Blood Stream

A study by researchers from the US, Australia, China and the University of British Columbia surgically attached lab animals so they shared the same blood supply.

Anyway, each member of a group of normal, healthy mice was coupled with another that was specially bred to carry a modified human gene that produces high levels of brain-damaging amyloid beta protein.

After 12 months, the normal mice developed the same plaques and tangles seen in Alzheimer’s. They displayed the type of brain cell degeneration, inflammation and micro-bleeding commonly seen in the disease.

There were also marked impairments in a region of the hippocampus, a part of the brain that’s especially important for learning and memory. This disruption in electrical signaling began after just four months.

These results point out important facts I report in my books. Inflammation, blood circulation, and meningeal compression are all relevant in this discussion of brain health.

The Research Showed

The blood study showed that the proteins associated with the development of Alzheimer’s disease can travel to the brain via the bloodstream. And those proteins are found outside the brain, They exist in muscles, blood platelets and blood vessels. In other words, the proteins from which amyloid is derived are found in a number of other organs.

The meninges control all of the blood circulating to and from your brain. They are the blood-brain barrier we talk so much about. Addressing a dysfunctional meninges may help to improve the blood-brain barrier.

One research author, Dr. Welhong Song, stated that “The blood-brain barrier weakens as we age. That might allow more amyloid beta to infiltrate the brain, supplementing what is produced by the brain itself and accelerating the deterioration.

“Alzheimer’s disease is clearly a disease of the brain, but we need to pay attention to the whole body to understand where it comes from, and how to stop it.

“Clearance of amyloid outside the brain could help reduce the amyloid inside the brain and might help slow down the disease progression.”
Dr. Song thinks it might be possible to develop a drug that binds to amyloid beta in the body, so that when it enters the bloodstream it is recognized by the kidneys or liver and the two bound substances are transported safely out of the body before the amyloid has a chance to enter the brain.

Drugs developed to address amyloid in the brain have not been successful.

Since the research team is telling us that Alzheimer’s might be a whole-body problem – a systemic disease — it reinforces the ideas of those working in integrative dr

By taking care of ourselves through diet, exercise, nutritional supplements, and periodic detoxing of key organs like the liver, kidneys and colon, we are taking care of our minds at the same time.

It is also time to buy Dr. Jay’s two books and read them! Fill out the surveys in them. Learn more about his BRAIN HEALTH program by logging into his webinar. Then contact him for an appointment to review your survey results. 510-849-1176.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29086767
http://www.med.ubc.ca/alzheimers-disease-might-be-a-whole-body-problem