2023-08-28 13:48:04
Alzheimer’s disease currently affects one in nine American adults over the age of 65, and the disorder is expected to become more prevalent in the future.
While there is no known cure for Alzheimer’s yet, scientists think they may have found a way to treat one aspect of it.
In a new study, a team from the University of California, San Diego and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), reconfigured the biological clocks of animals in a mouse model with Alzheimer’s disease through a program of intermittent fasting.
Disrupting the circadian clock is one way that Alzheimer’s disease interferes with biological processes in the body. Where people with this disease experience changes in their sleep-wake cycle, and often suffer from increased cognitive impairment and confusion in the evening, and they can have difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep, according to what was reported by the “Science Alert” scientific website, according to the medical journal “Cell Metabolism”.
Current Alzheimer’s treatments do not target this aspect of the disease, but there may be other ways to alleviate the problem. When the researchers put the mice on a time-bound feeding schedule, the animals showed significant improvements in memory function. Meanwhile, amyloid proteins (long associated with Alzheimer’s disease) were less likely to accumulate in the brains of the fasting mice.
Furthermore, mice on the feeding schedule followed a more regular sleep pattern, were less active at night, and experienced less sleep disturbances compared to mice that were allowed to eat at any time.
To clarify further, neuroscientist Paula Deplatz of the University of California, San Diego, said, “For many years, we assumed that circadian disruptions seen in people with Alzheimer’s disease are the result of neurodegeneration, but we are now learning that it may be the other way around. Disruption of the circadian clock may be one of the main drivers of Alzheimer’s disease.” “This makes circadian disturbances a promising target for novel Alzheimer’s therapies, and our findings provide a proof-of-concept for an easy and accessible method for correcting these disturbances.”
During the study, the mice were only allowed to eat during a six-hour period each day. In humans, this equates to a 14-hour fast in each 24-hour cycle; This appears to help reset the natural circadian rhythms that were disrupted by Alzheimer’s disease.
Changes were observed down to the molecular level as well. Multiple genes linked to disease and inflammation in the brain showed differences in the way they were expressed in Alzheimer’s mice on a fasting schedule.
Adopting intermittent fasting is something people can do with relative ease.
Relatively quickly as treatment progresses, it becomes fairly obvious; If the same results are found in human trials, this is another promising option that might be explored in combating this harmful form of dementia.
“In Alzheimer’s disease, daily disruptions are the main cause of placement in nursing homes,” Deplatz concludes. Anything we can do to help patients regain their circadian rhythm will make a huge difference in how we manage the disease.”
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