What does your doctor have to say about the similarity of your brain to a fruit fly? What else is your doctor doing to prevent your dementia? ANYTHING AT ALL?
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=134030&CultureCode=en
Scientists from Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Graz Have
Shown That Feeding Fruit Flies with Spermidin Suppresses Age-dependent
Memory Impairment
Age-induced memory impairment can be suppressed
by administration of the natural substance spermidin. This was found in
a recent study conducted by Prof. Dr. Stephan Sigrist from Freie
Universität Berlin and the Neurocure Cluster of Excellence and Prof. Dr.
Frank Madeo from Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz. Both biologists, they
were able to show that the endogenous substance spermidine triggers a
cellular cleansing process, which is followed by an improvement in the
memory performance of older fruit flies. At the molecular level, memory
processes in animal organisms such as fruit flies and mice are similar
to those in humans. The work by Sigrist and Madeo has potential for
developing substances for treating age-related memory impairment. The
study was first published in the online version of Nature Neuroscience.
Aggregated
proteins are potential candidates for causing age-related dementia.
With increasing age, the proteins accumulate in the brains of fruit
flies, mice, and humans. In 2009 Madeo’s group in Graz already found
that the spermidin molecule has an anti-aging effect by setting off
autophagy, a cleaning process at the cellular level. Protein aggregates
and other cellular waste are delivered to lysosomes, the digestive
apparatus in cells, and degraded.
Feeding the fruit flies
spermidin significantly reduced the amount of protein aggregates in
their brains, and their memories improved to juvenile levels. This can
be measured because flies can learn under classical Pavovian
conditioning and adjust their behavior accordingly.
In humans,
memory capacity decreases beginnning around the age of 50. This loss
accelerates with increasing age. Due to increasing life expectancy,
age-related memory impairment is expected to increase drastically. The
spermidine concentration increases with age in flies as in humans. If it
were possible to delay the onset of age-related dementia by giving
individuals spermidin as a food supplement, it would be a great
breakthrough for individuals and for society. Patient studies are the
next step for Sigrist and Madeo.
NeuroCure is a Cluster of
Excellence in the neurosciences at Charité ‑ Universitätsmedizin Berlin
working in collaboration with the departments of biology and
biochemistry at Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu
Berlin as well as with three independent research institutions.
Since there is Alzheimer's disease on my father's side of the family I hope this avenue of research pans out. Completely losing my mind is much scarier than a stroke.
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