Causes Of Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer’s disease, also known as AD, affects the older generations more so than any other form of dementia. AD is a progressive, multifactorial disease that affects the nervous system by interfering with proper cognitive functioning and memory, ultimately resulting in inability to function normally, and unfortunately death. Over time, several studies have identified two specific hallmarks of AD in the brain. These hallmarks include changes in amyloid B peptides which form senile plaques and “intracellular neurofibrillary tangle of hyperphosphorylated tau proteins.” Although these structures and actions are commonly found in most Alzheimer’s patients, recent studies have found another cause of AD, specifically sporadic AD. Low vitamin …show more content…
Vitamin D regulates nerve growth factors and neurotransmitters, calcium homeostasis, and age-related inflammation (Banerjee, 192749-192750). Nerve growth factors (NGF) and neurotransmitters are involved in normal operation of the septohippocampal pathway, which is involved in learning and memory. NGF levels in the forebrain were found to be extremely low in both animals and humans that suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. Vitamin D helps to “enhance NGF induction by increasing AP-1 binding activity in the NGF promoter, in mouse fibroblasts.” In regards to calcium, studies have shown that AD patients have irregular calcium homeostasis. Calcium is important because it is involved with almost all intracellular messaging in the brain and it helps develop neurons (Chan, 205). Vitamin D manages an important protein channel involved in maintaining regular calcium metabolism (Banerjee, 192749). Yet another important role of vitamin D is its ability to impede certain cell-signaling proteins in the hippocampus portion of the brain that cause neuronal inflammation (Banerjee, 192750). These are just some of the ways that vitamin D provides protection of neurons and proper regulation of processes which decreases the risk of developing sporadic Alzheimer’s …show more content…
In one study, researchers performed an experiment based on their knowledge of AD’s association with beta-amyloid oligomers, inflammation of nerve cells, and oxidative stress. These researchers previously found that a substance called alpha-tocopherol quinine (a-TQ) has ability to protect against these particular associations with AD (Ling, 109). Therefore, they dispensed a-TQ to transgenic mice suffering from AD and examined the effects a-TQ had on cognition (Ling,