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Abstract
Alzheimer’s is a degenerative brain disease that causes the cerebral cortex and
hippocampus to shrink and plaque to develop in the brain. Often confused with the changes
associated with aging, Alzheimer’s disease is much more than just memory loss because it
causes cognitive impairment and patients start to forget who they are as a person. There is
currently no cure for Alzheimer’s disease, but there have been major discoveries in the field as
scientists attempt to discover a viable treatment protocol for Alzheimer’s disease. Scientist have
found great success by using methods of protein manipulation, vaccinations, and natural products
to treat Alzheimer’s disease. The researcher came to the conclusion that the most effective
treatment for Alzheimer’s disease would be to determine through shRNA and selective reduction
which proteins were affecting the levels of A(beta) peptides in the brain, and then to develop a
vaccine that would either target or increase the expression of these proteins. If this research could
help scientists get one step closer to discovering a cure for Alzheimer’s disease and help millions
of suffering people, then that will be the true victory.
Introduction
Auguste Deter was the first patient diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease by Dr. Alois
doctors could not help them anymore than Dr. Alzheimer could help Auguste in 1901.
Alzheimer’s affects forty million people nationwide and there has been significant progress in
medicine with vaccines and treatments for cancer, but almost no progress with treating
Alzheimer’s disease. The lack of progress in developing an effective treatment protocol for
Alzheimer's disease is due to the fact that scientists are still trying to apprehend the pathology
of the disease, so they can better understand how to treat it. Also, Alzheimer’s research does not
receive as much as cancer research because there is a lack of Alzheimer’s awareness in the
world since it has been mistaken as a symptom of aging for many years. Out of the leading
causes of death in the world Alzheimer’s is the only one that does not have a cure or a method
to slow it down.
brain causing the cerebral cortex and hippocampus to shrivel and become damaged (Cohen).
Over time, patients will experience memory loss and cognitive impairment as the disease
progresses and more plaque builds up in the brain. The disease could start with something as
simple as forgetting where the patient left their keys, to what happened the night before, to not
knowing what day or year it is, to forgetting the names of their children, and finally forgetting
who they are. If scientists combine alternative methods of manipulating protein expression,
vitamins, and vaccinations then they could be one step closer to finding an effective treatment
Literature Review
First, manipulating protein expression could be an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s
like gonadotropins could help reduce and prevent plaque development in the brain, delaying the
symptoms of early onset Alzheimer’s (Jia). In addition, the glutamate receptor antagonist,
memantine, has been used in the treatment of individuals with Alzheimer’s disease (Revett).
Overexpressing glutamate receptors such as memantine could help prevent plaque development
in the brain by prohibiting the formation of A(beta) peptides in the brain (Colligan).
Manipulating protein expression to reduce the formation of the toxic A(beta) peptides is the goal
of most of the research studies because A(beta) plaque formation causes the symptoms of
Alzheimer’s disease.
Additionally, using more natural methods like plant injections could help treat
Alzheimer’s disease as well. For instance, the resveratrol treatment, injecting the natural
supplement of resveratrol in to the infected areas of the brain, has reduced neuroinflammatory
reactions in the brain and could help prevent symptoms of Alzheimer's disease from developing
(Kempuraj). Physical exercise and certain vitamins have also been proven to ward off
Alzheimer’s disease (Wollen). Physical exercise can keep your brain healthier and younger,
which could delay neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease (Lee). Using natural
methods such as daily exercise and plant injections help keep the brain younger and reduce
inflammatory reactions in the brain. Therefore, natural products have been proven an effective
Vaccines and medication are another promising method for treating Alzheimer’s disease.
For example, the Tau aggregation inhibitor is methylthioninium which is a drug that targets
A(beta) plaque accumulation (Panza). The Tau aggregation inhibitor which has been used to treat
Diabetes, has also been found to promote plaque reduction in Alzheimer’s disease (Dovey).
Also, there is an antibody-based immunotherapeutic approach that helps prevent some of the
vaccines to reduce the A(beta) toxicity levels in the brain which could be effective in treatment
protocols because it could lessen the effects of the plaque formation (Meek). Thus, vaccines and
medication would be an effective treatment method for Alzheimer’s disease because they help
Lastly, combining methods of vaccines, protein manipulation, and natural methods for an
effective Alzheimer’s treatment could be the most effective method to treat the disorder because
each method on its own has had varied success and it might be the best way to tackle the
complex disease. There has not been a lot of studies that have combined methods, but there have
been some. For example, some researchers have used extracts from plants to inject in to the brain
before they manipulated different proteins and enzymes in the brain (Kempuraj). Also, other
researchers have studied the effects of using various A(beta) vaccines and tested different protein
inhibitors such as GAMMA and BACE proteins (Jia). These researchers have found that these
methods have reduced inflammation and oxidants in the brain preventing some of the symptoms
of Alzheimer’s disease.
The three main approaches to Alzheimer’s treatment have been manipulating protein
expression, using natural methods, and vaccinations. Each methods has had some success, but it
has been limited because none of the three methods have found a way to cure or reverse the
different clinical trials to compare the results with the thesis. The sources that were analyzed
used methods of protein manipulation, plant injections, and/or vaccinations to treat Alzheimer's
disease.
Data Collection
Luo, G., Xu, H., This clinical investigation of Similar to Sell, Luo
Huang, Y., Mo, D., Alzheimer’s Disease assesses how hopes that by reducing
Song, L., Jia, B., the BACE-1 protein is related to the the expression of the
...Miao, Z. (2016). plaque formation in the brain. BACE-1 protein the
Deposition of BACE-1 Recent research has indicated that plaque formation in the
Protein in the Brains of plaque build-up in the brain is brain could be reduced.
APP/PS1 Double caused by the expression of the All the scientists agree
Transgenic Mice. A(beta) protein. The scientists on needing to reduce
BioMed Research performed many tests on the wild the levels of A(beta)
International. type mice to evaluate how the plaque protein to reduce the
Retrieved from buildup was affecting their cognitive plaque formation in the
http://link.galegroup.co functions. The scientists then brain. However, they
m/apps/doc/A5207158 harvested brain tissue from the wild all had different
15/GPS?u=avlr&sid=G type mice after six months and found approaches for how
PS&xid=e1446621 that the BACE-1 protein surrounded they were going to test
the plaque formation in brain. their hypothesis in
Therefore, the researchers hope that mice. More research
by reducing the expression of the still needs to be done
BACE-1 protein the plaque to conclude the results
formation will be reduced in the of these experiments,
brain due to the lower levels of the but based on these four
A(beta) protein. However, more sources the most
research still needs to be conducted effective protocol
to conclude the results and further would be to use
study the pathology of Alzheimer's selective reduction or
disease, but researchers are one step RNA to discover
closer to finding a cure for which proteins are
Alzheimer’s disease. affecting the levels of
A(beta) peptides and
then develop a
therapeutic vaccine to
eliminate or
overexpress certain
proteins to reduce the
inflammation and
plaque formation in the
brain.
Rationale
The researcher chose meta-analysis for their data collection method because they were
conducting scientific research and were not able to perform an authentic experiment. The
researcher is interested in studying the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease, and wanted to further
investigate possible treatment protocols for the disease. The researcher could not conduct an
experiment or observational study because they did not have access to mice or Alzheimer's
patients. In addition, since most Alzheimer's treatments are still in their developmental stages
analyzing academic journals seemed to be a more effective method to study the pathology of the
disease. The first academic journal that was analyzed by the researcher became the cornerstone
of their research because they were intrigued by how the scientists used selective reduction to
prevent learning deficits in mice. Therefore, the researcher looked for three sources with
experiments that tested different vaccines and methods of manipulating protein expression in the
Analysis
After analyzing the four academic sources, the researcher came to the conclusion that the
most effective treatment for Alzheimer’s disease would be to determine through shRNA and
selective reduction which proteins were affecting the levels of A(beta) peptides in the brain, and
then to develop a vaccine that would either target or increase the expression of these proteins.
The hypothesis is by either targeting the proteins that increase the levels of A(beta) peptides or
overexpressing the proteins that decrease the levels of A(beta) proteins so the plaque formation
and inflammation in the brain will be reduced, protecting patients from developing the learning
and memory deficits related to Alzheimer’s disease. However, more research still needs to be
conducted to formulate a more specific hypothesis. These results were not surprising because
Alzheimer’s disease was often associated as a symptom of aging and therefore did not receive as
much research funding as cancer. Therefore, scientists are just now making strides to understand
the disease, and have concluded that Alzheimer’s is a very complex disease that is difficult to
treat because it is caused by both genetic and environmental factors. Furthermore, the conclusion
of this study is very vague because scientists have acknowledged that there is still a lot about
Alzheimer’s disease that is unknown, and everyone has a different idea about how to treat
Alzheimer’s disease.
Conclusions
The researcher formed a conclusion that combined different ideas from scientists across
the world in attempt to answer their research question. The hope is by combining alternative
methods of manipulating protein expression, vaccinations, and natural products that scientists are
one step closer to finding an effective treatment protocol for Alzheimer’s disease. Some of the
limitations of these studies were that all four sources tested their treatments on mice and there is
yet to be an ideal mice model for the human pathology. In addition, there are a lot of immune
and age-dependent effects of Alzheimer’s disease which makes it difficult to determine if these
clinical treatments will help treat all Alzheimer’s patients. However, even though mice pathology
is not exactly like human pathology, they are close enough to come to accurate conclusions about
the effectiveness of treatments. Additionally, even if due to different environmental factors the
clinical treatments do not help everyone, if one person could be cured of Alzheimer’s disease
then that would be a victory in itself because that patient would have gotten another chance to
These results could give hope to future researchers and patients suffering from
Alzheimer’s disease because it shows that scientists are starting to determine the cause of plaque
formation in the brain and are currently working on finding a treatment to reduce plaque buildup.
Most scientists agree that plaque formation in the brain is an effect of the increase in the A(beta)
peptide levels, and that plaque buildup causes neurodegeneration and cognitive impairment in
the brain. Therefore, in attempt to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease scientists found that by
targeting the proteins that increase the levels of A(beta) peptides or overexpressing the proteins
that protect against the formation of A(beta) peptides plaque formation in the brain can be
reduced. Additionally, scientists used vaccines to decrease inflammation in the brain to prevent
the learning and memory deficits associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Furthermore, the
researcher concluded that by combining these three methods, selective reduction, vaccinations,
and natural products, scientists could find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease and save the lives of
millions of people.
There are 5.4 million people currently living with Alzheimer’s and for every new person
diagnosed with the disease they have about the same chance of survival as Auguste Deter did in
1901. Most people know that the pink ribbon represents Breast Cancer, but not everyone knows
that that the purple ribbon represents Alzheimer’s disease. Therefore, the goal is to raise
awareness about Alzheimer’s disease as scientists work to find a cure for this complex disease,
and even if one life could be saved from Alzheimer’s disease in the future then true progress will
have been made. There have been recent progress made in treatments, but its still in the
developmental stages. Alzheimer’s does not get the attention and support like Breast Cancer,
help support the cause, demand a cure, and always remember those who cannot.
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