Cholesterol plays a role in Alzheimer's

In the Netherlands there are currently around 270,000 people with Alzheimer's. Every year, the patient group grows by at least five to seven thousand. Alzheimer Nederland expects the number will eventually double to half a million, by the year 2050.

Using a brand new genetic technique, a group of American and Dutch researchers discovered that the accumulation of cholesterol in the brain cells of Alzheimer's patients leads to an inevitable accumulation of harmful Alzheimer's proteins. These proteins disrupt communication between brain cells in the brain, after which they eventually die, resulting in dementia. The group of scientists hopes to be able to test a cholesterol inhibitor for the brain region in patients with the disease within one to two years. Neurobiologist and Alzheimer's Researcher, Dr. Rik van der Kant of the Free University in Amsterdam says he is optimistic that the Alzheimer's treatment with reducing cholesterol in the brain may lead to interesting results. Van der Kant: “Because we needed living brain cells for this study, and we could not just remove any brain tissue from a patient, we were able to cultivate stem cells from the skin of Alzheimer's patients and reprogram them into brain cells.”

Testing existing medicines

More than 1,600 existing medicines were subsequently tested on these cultured brain cells using the new genetic engineering techniques. “We found that drugs that lowered cholesterol in Alzheimer's brain cells also prevented the build-up of the two harmful proteins. A special observation.” It has already been seen, for example, in the so-called 'Rotterdam Study', that people who take statins to reduce their cholesterol have a slightly reduced chance of developing Alzheimer's. Van der Kant: However, lowering cholesterol for the body is a somewhat different story than lowering cholesterol for the brain. Not every agent that works for the body can penetrate to the brain. This is caused by the so-called ‘blood-brain barrier’, which literally forms the protective barrier between the brain and the rest of the body.” Nevertheless, the drug testing of 1,600 drugs yielded one cholesterol-lowering drug that also managed to reach the brain: the existing HIV drug, Efavirenz. “This could be a potential drug to treat Alzheimer's”, say the researchers.