Natural Approaches May Help Clear Brain Plaques

Alzheimer's brain tissue exhibits many fewer nerve cells and synapses than a healthy brain, due to the presence of plaques – abnormal clusters of protein fragments, build up between nerve cells; and tangles – twisted strands of proteins that comprise dead and dying nerve cells. In a small pilot study, Milan Fiala, from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA; California, USA), and colleagues drew blood samples from both Alzheimer's patients and healthy controls, then isolated macrophages – blood components that are responsible for disposing of amyloid-beta and other waste products in the brain and body. The team incubated the immune cells overnight with amyloid-beta. They added either an active form of vitamin D3 called 1alpha,25–dihydroxyvitamin D3 or an active form of the omega-3 fatty acid DHA called resolvin D1 to some of the cells to gauge the effect they had on inflammation and amyloid-beta absorption.  The researchers observed that  both 1alpha, 25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 and resolvin D1 improved the ability of the Alzheimer's disease patients' macrophages to gobble-up amyloid-beta, and they inhibited the cell death that is induced by amyloid-beta. Researchers observed that each nutrition molecule utilized different receptors and common signaling pathways to do this. The lead researcher is hopeful that: "Our new study sheds further light on a possible role for nutritional substances such as vitamin D3 and omega-3 in boosting immunity to help fight Alzheimer's."