Latest news with #BruceA.Yankner
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Research on reversing Alzheimer's reveals lithium as potential key
Seven years of investigation by scientists at Harvard Medical School has revealed that the loss of the metal lithium plays a powerful role in Alzheimer's disease, a finding that could lead to earlier detection, new treatments and a broader understanding of how the brain ages. Researchers led by Bruce A. Yankner, a professor of genetics and neurology at Harvard Medical School, reported that they were able to reverse the disease in mice and restore brain function with small amounts of the compound lithium orotate, enough to mimic the metal's natural level in the brain. Their study appeared Wednesday in the journal Nature. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. 'The obvious impact is that because lithium orotate is dirt cheap, hopefully we will get rigorous, randomized trials testing this very, very quickly,' said Matt Kaeberlein, former director of the Healthy Aging and Longevity Research Institute at the University of Washington, who did not participate in the study. 'And I would say that it will be an embarrassment to the Alzheimer's clinical community if that doesn't happen right away.' Yankner, who is also the co-director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research at Harvard, said: 'I do not recommend that people take lithium at this point, because it has not been validated as a treatment in humans. We always have to be cautious because things can change as you go from mice to humans.' He added that the findings still need to be validated by other labs. Although there have been recent breakthroughs in the treatment of Alzheimer's, no medication has succeeded in stopping or reversing the disease that afflicts more than 7 million Americans, a number projected to reach almost 13 million by 2050, according to the Alzheimer's Association. Lithium is widely prescribed for patients with bipolar disorder, and previous research indicated that it held potential as an Alzheimer's treatment and an antiaging medication. A 2017 study in Denmark suggested the presence of lithium in drinking water might be associated with a lower incidence of dementia. However, the new work is the first to describe the specific roles that lithium plays in the brain, its influence on all of the brain's major cell types and the effect that its deficiency later in life has on aging. Results of the study by Yankner's lab and researchers at Boston Children's Hospital and the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center in Chicago also suggest that measuring lithium levels might help doctors screen people for signs of Alzheimer's years before the first symptoms begin to appear. Yankner said doctors might be able to measure lithium levels in the cerebrospinal fluid or blood, or through brain imaging. - - - How our brains use lithium In a healthy brain, lithium maintains the connections and communication lines that allow neurons to talk with one another. The metal also helps form the myelin that coats and insulates the communication lines and helps microglial cells clear cellular debris that can impede brain function. 'In normal aging mice,' Yankner said, 'lithium promotes good memory function. In normal aging humans,' higher lithium levels also correspond to better memory function. The depletion of lithium in the brain plays a role in most of the deterioration in several mouse models of Alzheimer's disease. Loss of lithium accelerates the development of harmful clumps of the protein amyloid beta and tangles of the protein tau that resemble the structures found in people with Alzheimer's. Amyloid plaques and tau tangles disrupt communication between nerve cells. The plaques in turn undermine lithium by trapping it, weakening its ability to help the brain function. Lithium depletion is involved in other destructive processes of Alzheimer's: decay of brain synapses, damage to the myelin that protects nerve fibers and reduced capacity of microglial cells to break down amyloid plaques. Lithium's pervasive role comes despite the fact that our brains contain only a small amount of it. After examining more than 500 human brains from Rush and other brain banks, Yankner's team discovered the naturally occurring lithium in the brain is 1,000 times less than the lithium provided in medications to treat bipolar disorder. Li-Huei Tsai, director of the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and who was not involved in the study, called it 'very exciting,' especially when many in the field, including her own lab, have focused on genetic risk factors for Alzheimer's. 'But clearly genetic risk factors are not the only things,' said Tsai, who is also Picower professor of neuroscience. 'There are a lot of people walking around carrying these risk genes, but they are not affected by Alzheimer's disease. I feel this study provides a very important piece of the puzzle.' - - - Pathways for treatment Alzheimer's treatments mostly help to manage symptoms and slow the decline it causes in thinking and functioning. Aducanumab, lecanemab, and donanemab, all lab-made antibodies, bind to the harmful amyloid plaques and help remove them. Donepezil, rivastigmine and galantamine ― all in the class of medications known as cholinesterase inhibitors ― work by replenishing a chemical messenger called acetylcholine, which is diminished in Alzheimer's. Acetylcholine plays an important role in memory, muscle movement and attention. Yankner and his team found that when they gave otherwise healthy mice a reduced-lithium diet, the mice lost brain synapses and began to lose memory. 'We found that when we administered lithium orotate to aging mice [that had] started losing their memory, the lithium orotate actually reverted their memory to the young adult, six month level,' he said. Lithium orotate helped the mice reduce production of the amyloid plaques and tau tangles, and allowed the microglial cells to remove the plaques much more effectively. Yankner said one factor that might help lithium orotate reach clinical trials sooner is the small amount of the treatment needed, which could greatly reduce the risk of harmful side effects, such as kidney dysfunction and thyroid toxicity. Aside from its potential in treating Alzheimer's, Yankner said lithium orotate might also have implications for the treatment of Parkinson's disease, an area his lab is investigating. 'That needs to be rigorously examined,' he said. 'But we're looking at a whole slew of disorders.' Related Content Trump is threatening to take over D.C. Here's what he can and can't do. They once shared recipes. Now her family is going hungry in Gaza. Pets are being abandoned, surrendered amid Trump's immigration crackdown Solve the daily Crossword
Al Etihad
4 days ago
- Health
- Al Etihad
Harvard research on reversing Alzheimer's reveals lithium as potential key
6 Aug 2025 22:51 ABU DHABI (ALETIHAD)A decade of investigation by scientists at Harvard Medical School have revealed that the loss of the metal lithium plays a powerful role in Alzheimer's disease, a finding that could lead to earlier detection and new treatments for the disease that affects memory and cognitive led by Bruce A. Yankner, professor of genetics and neurology at Harvard Medical School, reported that they were able to reverse the disease in mice and restore brain function with small amounts of the compound lithium orotate, enough to mimic the metal's natural level in the brain. Their study appeared Wednesday in the journal findings are based on a series of experiments in mice and on analyses of human brain tissue and blood samples from individuals in various stages of cognitive scientists found that lithium loss in the human brain is one of the earliest changes leading to Alzheimer's, while in mice, similar lithium depletion accelerated brain pathology and memory team further found that reduced lithium levels stemmed from binding to amyloid plaques and impaired uptake in the brain. In a final set of experiments, the team found that a novel lithium compound that avoids capture by amyloid plaques restored memory in mice. The results unify decades-long observations in patients, providing a new theory of the disease and a new strategy for early diagnosis, prevention, and an estimated 400 million people worldwide, Alzheimer's disease involves an array of brain abnormalities — such as clumps of the protein amyloid beta, neurofibrillary tangles of the protein tau, and loss of a protective protein called REST — but these never explained the full story of the instance, some people with such abnormalities show no signs of cognitive decline. And recently developed treatments that target amyloid beta typically don't reverse memory loss and only modestly reduce the rate of decline. It is also clear that genetic and environmental factors affect risk of Alzheimer's, but scientists haven't figured out why some people with the same risk factors develop the disease while others do not. Lithium, the study authors said, may be a critical missing link.'The idea that lithium deficiency could be a cause of Alzheimer's disease is new and suggests a different therapeutic approach,' said senior author Bruce Yankner, professor of genetics and neurology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS, who in the 1990s was the first to demonstrate that amyloid beta is study raises hopes that researchers could one day use lithium to treat the disease in its entirety rather than focusing on a single facet such as amyloid beta or tau, he of the main discoveries in the study is that as amyloid beta begins to form deposits in the early stages of dementia in both humans and mouse models, it binds to lithium, reducing lithium's function in the brain. The lower lithium levels affect all major brain cell types and, in mice, give rise to changes recapitulating Alzheimer's disease, including memory authors identified a class of lithium compounds that can evade capture by amyloid beta. Treating mice with the most potent amyloid-evading compound, called lithium orotate, reversed Alzheimer's disease pathology, prevented brain cell damage, and restored the findings need to be confirmed in humans through clinical trials, they suggest that measuring lithium levels could help screen for early Alzheimer's. Moreover, the findings point to the importance of testing amyloid-evading lithium compounds for treatment or lithium compounds are already used to treat bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder, but they are given at much higher concentrations that can be toxic, especially to older team found that lithium orotate is effective at one-thousandth that dose — enough to mimic the natural level of lithium in the brain. Mice treated for nearly their entire adult lives showed no evidence of lithium has not yet been shown to be safe or effective in protecting against neurodegeneration in humans, Yankner emphasises that people should not take lithium compounds on their own. But he expressed cautious optimism that lithium orotate or a similar compound will move forward into clinical trials in the near future and could ultimately change the story of Alzheimer's treatment. 'My hope is that lithium will do something more fundamental than anti-amyloid or anti-tau therapies, not just lessening but reversing cognitive decline and improving patients' lives,' he said. Source: Aletihad - Abu Dhabi
