Calcium Hypothesis of Alzheimer's Disease

About 5 million Americans, mostly seniors, and 18 million worldwide, currently suffer from Alzheimer's disease. The condition is mainly known for the memory loss sufferers experience, but it is a progressive neurological disorder that affects much more than that. Medical science is still not sure what causes the disease and although there are numerous experimental treatments, there is no known cure. Researchers are looking at risk factors in heart disease and stroke, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diet and vitamin levels, and even the lack of social support. One strain of research is exploring how calcium may play a role in the development of Alzheimer's.

Definition of Alzheimer's

• The hallmark of Alzheimer's is the presence of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. The plaques are essentially normal proteins that grow in abnormal ways in the brain; they start to form sticky clumps in the brain. The tangles refer to your brain's "scaffolding" system that helps transport nutrients to your body. They twist and turn and die, no longer able to support this process.

Calcium Hypothesis

• The calcium hypothesis states controlling calcium levels may be beneficial in delaying or preventing Alzheimer's for those with other risk factors. This is because recent research on families with high numbers of relatives with Alzheimer's suggests that the way the brain handles calcium may also play some role in the onset of the disease.

Calcium Regulation

• Essentially, researchers discovered that two proteins interact with the way the brain regulates the release of calcium into the body's cells. A normal brain has a system to maintain just the right balance of calcium being released at any moment, but these proteins interfere and cause an abnormal level of calcium to be released. Over time, this could cause the progressive neurological degeneration, memory loss, inflammation, cell nerve death and cognitive dysfunction that Alzheimer's patients experience.

New Treatments

• These findings are significant because they unleash many new ways to treat and possibly cure the disease. Most drugs that are currently being used with Alzheimer's patients focus on the amyloid plaques, trying to prevent or eliminate them. The hypothesis opens the door for future drugs that are designed to correct the abnormal level of calcium in the brain.

  Other research has found a link between calcium regulation and the production of amyloid plaques. There are many layers to the link between calcium and Alzheimer's and additional research is needed to fully investigate the link.

Race to the Cure

• Alzheimer's disease is one of the top ten leading causes of death in the United States, surpassing even diabetes in the toll it has taken. And it's on the rise. The CDC expects there to be more than 13 million Americans affected by Alzheimer's by 2050. Medicare spending on the disease is close to $100 billion, about 34 percent of all Medicare spending. The vast majority of the costs of caregiving for Alzheimer's is borne by families of sufferers. Clearly, the disease is a major public health issue, making research for effective treatment and a cure critical.