London – Telltale signs of Alzheimer’s can be seen in the brains of people as young as 20, research shows.
The ‘unprecedented’ finding suggests the disease starts to eat away at cells half a century before symptoms develop – much earlier than previously thought.
It raises the prospect of treatment in the very first stages of the condition, when it is easiest to tackle, and possibly stopping it.
British experts cautioned that more research is needed. Crucially, it is not known how many younger people with indicators of the disease will develop it.
Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia affect more than 800,000 Britons – and the number of sufferers worldwide is predicted to treble to 44million by 2050, as the population ages. With no cure, Prime Minister David Cameron has described the condition as ‘the key health challenge of this generation’.
In the study, published in the journal Brain, researchers from Northwestern University, Chicago, examined the brains of elderly people with and without Alzheimer’s, as well as samples taken from 13 people aged 20-66 who were free of memory problems when they died.
Tests showed beta-amyloid, a toxic protein that clogs up the brain in Alzheimer’s, started building up in those as young as 20. It had been thought the damage began only 15 or 20 years before the disease takes hold. Researcher Changiz Geula said: ‘Discovering that amyloid begins to accumulate so early in life is unprecedented.’
Amyloid clumps were found in neurons involved in memory and attention – among the first cells to die in normal ageing.
Professor Geula said: ‘The lifelong accumulation of amyloid likely contributes to the vulnerability of these cells. The growing clumps likely damage and eventually kill the neurons.’
Dr James Pickett, of the Alzheimer’s Society, said more research is needed, but that clinical trials of drugs that reduce amyloid are under way, adding: ‘We hope to find out if this is a successful way to prevent or delay Alzheimer’s in the next few years.’
Daily Mail