Riyadh: Dr. Hassan Muhammad Sandaqji
A new American study has attempted to solve one of the medical mysteries that has not been explained to date, namely; Why do women get Alzheimer’s disease at higher rates than men?
Alzheimer’s disease
According to a report published in the Oct. 13 issue of the journal Cell, 9 research physicians from the American Case Western Reserve College of Medicine in Cleveland Ohio, the Alzheimer’s Research Institute at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York and the University of South Florida The College of Medicine has participated in , in the preparation of a new study that could help explain the gender gap in Alzheimer’s disease. At the same time, they hope their findings will provide clues for new treatments that could help patients of both sexes fight Alzheimer’s disease in the future.
Given the importance of the issue, Dr. Andrew E. Bodson sought to reveal aspects of what is medically known on this topic in a scientific article published January 20 on the Harvard Medical School website, entitled: “ Why are women more likely to develop Alzheimer’s?” In it he said: “Did you know that nearly two-thirds of Alzheimer’s patients in the United States are women. Why is Alzheimer’s disease more common in women? Dr. Andrew E. Bodson is chief of cognitive and behavioral neuroscience at Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System and professor of neuroscience at Harvard Medical School.
It is known that Alzheimer’s disease is classified as a “progressive neurological disorder” and gradually leads to the atrophy of the brain and the death of its neurons. However, neither the exact causes of Alzheimer’s disease nor the mechanisms by which it begins and progresses are not fully understood. It is noted, according to the results of the analysis of the brain tissue of Alzheimer’s patients, that there are changes that occur in the brain; Since certain types of proteins accumulate in its tissues, which are beta-amyloid proteins and tau proteins, and consequently a series of substances harmful to brain cells, which profoundly threaten the efficiency of cells brain and their communication with each other. Then, over time, neurons become damaged, lose contact with each other, and eventually die.
The damage usually begins slowly in the area of the brain that controls memory, and symptoms appear over years. The loss of neurons then spreads to other areas of the brain. As a result, the brain shrinks dramatically once the latter stages of the disease are reached.
harmful proteins in the brain
To understand the cause of Alzheimer’s disease, researchers are focusing on why these proteins accumulate. To be clear, when beta-amyloid proteins build up “between brain cells” and build up as amyloid plaques, they produce a toxic effect on nerve cells and disrupt communication between these cells. As for tau proteins, they originally play a specific role in the internal support of the nerve cell and its transport system to transport nutrients and other essential substances. But in Alzheimer’s, tau proteins are warped and accumulate “inside neurons” in structures called neurofibrillary tangles, which disrupt and poison the transport system inside neurons.
And since the problem of the onset of Alzheimer’s disease is directly related to the disturbance of the brain’s ability to clean itself of certain types of “junk waste” that are formed in excess, and to understand the reason for the attention of American researchers in their new study of one of the genes in particular, and the possibility that its disorder is one of the reasons for the high incidence of Alzheimer’s among people.Women than men, we must note the following three points…
1. Damage to brain neurons in Alzheimer’s disease is a result of the buildup of two types of proteins in the brain. It is not normal for these proteins to accumulate in brain tissue, but they are “rubbish” that the brain must have effective mechanisms to control their formation and get rid of.
2. To understand the cause of Alzheimer’s disease, medical researchers focus on the role of disorders in the process of creating and removing garbage from the brain, that is, a disorder in the process of cleaning the brain itself from the accumulation of waste types of materials protein. And try to know the mechanism of this ailment, so that they can produce drugs that prevent the occurrence of this problem, or at least stop its development.
3. To find out why women suffer from Alzheimer’s more than men in their recent and complex study, American researchers have addressed the topic of tau proteins, and have focused in particular on a gene for the production of an enzyme, called “USP11” in the brain, which is related to the accumulation process of tau proteins. . This gene is found on the X chromosome. Females are known to have two X chromosomes, while males have one X chromosome and the other chromosome is Y, which means that all males have one copy of the USB 11 gene. females have two copies of this gene. It is what researchers have been dealing with influence in the emergence of Alzheimer’s disease.
genetic defect
“Although women have a significantly higher Tau Burden burden (than men) and a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease than men, the mechanism underlying this impairment has not been elucidated,” the researchers said in their introduction. at the studio.). Here, we show through in vitro and in vivo models, as well as human brain tissue (with Alzheimer’s), that ubiquitin (malfunction) of the ubiquitin gene-related protein (USP11) on the X chromosome increases the pathological accumulation of the proteins tau in the brain.».
To be clear, tau proteins are one of the types of proteins that occur naturally in the human brain. They are “soluble” proteins that “stabilize and continue” the functioning of nerve cells. Specifically, one of the main functions of tau proteins is to maintain the stability of “microtubules” in the axonal part of the neuron, which contributes to the “speed” of the conduction process in the neuron.
These proteins undergo a controlled “phosphorylation” process, in order to remain in a normal (clean) state within the brain. But with age, the ability to regulate its phosphorylation is disturbed. What affects the normal interconnection between tau proteins and fine structures in nerve cells (tubules). So, in Alzheimer’s disease, tau proteins become “malfunctioning” and are unable to stabilize microtubules adequately. And they resort to piling them on top of each other, like “garbage,” unless it’s removed.
The ubiquitin protein mentioned by the researchers is a small-sized “cleaning protein” that serves as an “analytical” compound and is found in living cells, to play an important role in the analysis of “bad” and unnecessary proteins, i.e. , garbage waste, for disposal. And the presence of an important enzyme (USP11) in the brain of women more than in men, inhibits the activity of the scavenging protein, and therefore tau proteins accumulate like garbage in the brain.
“Our study demonstrated that the level of the USP11 enzyme is higher in females than in males,” the researchers said. The study adds to a growing body of evidence showing that women are more likely than men to have higher levels of tau, which could explain why women develop Alzheimer’s disease more often than men.
They added, “Inhibiting the action of this enzyme may provide an effective therapeutic opportunity to protect women against increased susceptibility to Alzheimer’s, as well as other brain pathologies linked to tau protein accumulation.”
The story of Alzheimer’s remains in part, it is following the outputs of waste-forming processes in the brain and clearing the brain of it.
Other reasons for the high incidence of Alzheimer’s in women
Under the heading ‘Why are women more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease?’ said Dr. Andrew E. Bodson, chair of the department of cognitive and behavioral neuroscience at the Boston Veterans Affairs Healthcare System and professor of neuroscience at Harvard Medical School: “The first reason. The most important thing is that women live longer than men. Age is the biggest risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. However, he added, “But that’s not the complete answer.”
Addressing this possible cause, she said: ‘One study followed nearly 17,000 people in Sweden and found that, starting around age 80, women were more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than men of the same age. Similarly, a study in Taiwan found that the chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease over a 7-year period were higher for women than for men. Scientific analyzes looking at cases of Alzheimer’s disease in Europe found that nearly 13 out of 1,000 women develop Alzheimer’s each year, compared with just 7 men. Thus, the full answer to why more women get Alzheimer’s disease than men cannot be that women live longer than men, because among individuals living the same age, women are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease than men.
She elaborated on the confusion over the correct answer, saying, ‘One of the pieces of evidence for the answer to this riddle is that the chances of developing dementia due to a cause other than Alzheimer’s disease are no greater for women than for men. incidence of dementia without Alzheimer’s disease is not higher in women than in men, suggesting that there must be a specific interaction between Alzheimer’s disease and gender. More research is needed!”
The medical community proposes the role of another factor, namely that women are twice as likely to suffer from depression as men, mainly because the hippocampus of depressed women is smaller than that of depressed men and is an important region of the brain for memory training. This is what a French-Canadian study indicates, published in the July 2015 issue of the Journal of Psychological Medicine, published by the University of Cambridge.
There is also another possibility, which is the effect that women exercise less than men, mainly because those who exercise are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s. This was despite the fact that women who exercised more were 88 percent less likely to develop dementia. According to the results of a Swedish study published in the April 2018 issue of Neurology.
And some medical sources raise another, more complex aspect, namely that the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease includes tests of verbal memory, a function that women have higher degrees and levels than men. The downside to this feature, however, is that women can perform well on these tests, even with early-onset Alzheimer’s, unlike men. Therefore, the diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease may be delayed. When women are diagnosed with these conditions, they already have a heavier disease burden and their memory abilities decline more rapidly than men.
