Alzheimer’s

reduces the risk of suffering from Alzheimer’s in the future by 65%

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In the Nordic countries, the sauna is little less than a religion, since, more than a luxury, it is considered a necessity for daily well-being as it is attributed all kinds of healing properties. These spaces in Spain have little by little been gaining strength and there are now many gyms that include this service for their members and in spas it has also become one more. Its properties. Here common knowledge tells us that it is good to spend a few minutes in the sauna enduring humid heat, but the question we must ask ourselves is: does it really have healing properties? And the reality is that science supports the impact that thermotherapy has on our own brain. A Finnish study. When talking about the neurological benefits of the sauna, almost all roads lead to the same point, which is the KIHD cohort study carried out by the University of Eastern Finland. This is considered the “crown jewel” of thermotherapy and with good reason, since researchers followed 2,300 middle-aged Finnish men for 20 years to see the real impact of the sauna on their health. The results They pointed out that those who went to the sauna between 4 and 7 times a week had a 66% lower risk of developing dementia than those who only went once a week. But also, in the specific case of the disease Alzheimer’sthe risk was reduced by 65%. These data are not a simple statistical accident, since the researchers adjusted the results taking into account multiple risk factors, such as smoking or BMI. Furthermore, subsequent reviews have expanded on these findings, noting that the benefits of passive body warming remain independent of other risk factors and they are not exclusive to the male sex. Beyond memory. The impact of the sauna is not limited to neurodegenerative diseases, but we also have evidence that tells us that heat baths lead to improvements in depressive symptoms. And although the evidence here is more mixed and is based on observational studies and smaller trials, neurobiology offers us a fascinating explanation of why this happens. The most relevant thing in this case is that heat activates certain proteins in our body that are responsible for repairing other damaged proteins and protecting cells from stress. But in addition, the alternation between intense heat and subsequent cooling trains our “fight or flight” and “rest and digest” responses. If we go more recently, we know that depression has an important inflammatory component and the increase in body temperature paradoxically reduces these inflammatory markers in the long term. The small print. What these studies tell us right now is that taking saunas frequently makes the brain age more slowly, but it is not an absolute coincidence. That is to say, we cannot categorically affirm 100% that it is the heat itself that ‘stops’ dementia. The reason for this is that going to the sauna 4 or 5 times a week is usually associated with a particular lifestyle, since it can be accompanied by several exercise sessions in a gym. Even having the time and resources to do so is usually linked to lives with lower stress levels, greater social interaction and better habits that can have a lot to say in Alzheimer’s. Images | HUMM In Xataka | Dementia is devastating largely because it arrives without warning: some researchers already predict it seven years in the future

“There is a scripture, and it is not the will, that when there is Alzheimer’s, it can avoid family conflicts”

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Legal and property provision for the last part of our life is, in a way, taboo. It is not a tasteful dish think about your own death or in a situation of incapacity in which there is no capacity for rational decision-making. However, not doing so poses a serious problem for the family members around you. and they take care of you. According what was published by Trendsthe most common thing in these cases is to think about the will, a document that establishes the last wishes of the people. However, notaries warn that, more and more often, it is necessary to opt for another legal figure that comes into play before death: preventive power, which allows a designated person to act on your behalf without having to embark on a legal process. disability judicial process. A power designed for when you can no longer decide. The preventive power is a relatively unknown legal figure, but notaries claim it as a very effective tool to prevent families from having to initiate a judicial process of inability to manage the assets of a person who is no longer capable of doing so themselves due to a degenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s. As the Alicante notary María Cristina Clemente said in a videothis notarial document is signed while the person is still in a position to decide, even in the first months after a diagnosis. It designates someone you trust (a child, your partner, a brother) to act on your behalf on the day you can no longer do it alone. According to her, it is enough to have “that person by your side, who you know will accompany you until the end.” That person will be able to sell the home, manage the checking account or decide to enter a residence without asking permission from any judge. The law that changed everything. This figure is not entirely new, but it gained legal force with the reform of the Law 8/2021which introduced some new features in the Civil Code to strengthen support for people with disabilities. “That father, that mother who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and the disease continues its course, and the time comes when it is no longer possible for him to continue at home because hospitalization is required in a residence and that generates a lot of expenses and the liquidity is not in the bank, it is in what was his habitual residence, and it has to be sold,” Clemente explained in his video. In your article 256 It allows granting a power that remains valid even if the principal loses the ability to decide for himself. However, the article 257 It goes one step further: it allows a power that is only activated if this loss occurs, accredited with a medical report. That is, incapacity is applied after medical expertise, but without initiating a long judicial process. Before this reform, a normal power was extinguished as soon as the holder lost his decision-making capacity, just when it was needed most. “That person is no longer in a position to come to the notary’s office. Therefore, this judicial ordeal begins,” lamented the Alicante notary. Why avoid the court. Without this power, the only way left for the family is to ask a court to declare the person’s lack of capacity and appoint a guardian. It is a long process, with experts, hearings and months of waiting, while the bills for the treatment or care for the person do not stop arriving and the family cannot use the patient’s own resources to cover them. With the preventive power signed, this judicial procedure is no longer necessary. The agent presents the notarial deed and acts in full representation of the person, being able to make decisions about their assets. You do not need authorization from the court to sell the house or move the money. The difference with the will is clear: the will distributes what remains after death, while the power of attorney manages the life and assets of someone who is still alive but can no longer decide for themselves. Notaries from different cities, the same advice. This recommendation does not come from a single voice, but rather several notaries who are in favor of this legal figure to support families in the care of their relatives affected by degenerative diseases. The notary Jesus Benavides Lima, of Barcelona, ​​emphasizes that the procedure is unilateral: it does not require the representative to be present or accept anything at that moment, and it can be revoked whenever desired. Its cost is between 25 and 50 euros, well below what a judicial process costs later. From Madrid, the notary Fernando Gomá Lanzónpatron of the foundation There is a rightinsists on an important nuance: power gives very broad powers, so “it is essential to adequately reflect on who this right is granted.” The three notaries defend the same idea: better to decide calmly by assigning that power to the appropriate person, than to leave it in the hands of a court. A problem that will get worse over the years. According to data from the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumption and Agenda 2030, more than one million people live with Alzheimer’s in Spain, and the figure could triple towards 2050 due to demographic aging. Each of these families may end up facing, sooner or later, the same dilemma of a home that cannot be sold or care expenses that cannot be charged to the affected person’s checking account. Signing a preventive power of attorney costs little time and little money. And as Clemente reminds, it can be granted even in the first stages of diagnosiswhen the person still decides with total freedom who will take care of them tomorrow. “That person will not need to go to court to obtain any judicial authorization. They will be in charge of doing everything they deem best for your care,” Clemente said. In Xataka | If the question is how much money can be … Read more

Predicting Alzheimer’s 10 years in advance is now a scientific reality. The challenge now is to prevent healthcare from collapsing

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Alzheimer’s is a devastating disease that is undoubtedly a true ghost, since it only It becomes visible when the damage is already irreparable and that, despite trying to stop it, it is becoming difficult to control it. And historically, the medical diagnosis comes when memory begins to fail, but by then the brain has been suffering in silence for years, even decades. Now science focuses on the need for early diagnosis so that treatments can work. A new analysis. One of the ways to detect this disease before it begins to show the classic symptoms such as memory loss is through a blood test. This is the milestone that has been collected in The Lancet magazine recently thanks to research from the University of California, and that could generate a large population screening that is not free of controversy. What they did. The researchers followed 1,350 people aged between 56 and 69, without any type of dementia, for more than 35 years. And here the key was to look for specific proteins circulating in the blood that increased in the earliest phases of Alzheimer’s, as occurs with others marked in other diseases such as PSA in prostate cancer. And they found two biomarkers. The first of them is Aβ42/40, which is an early indicator that warns of the accumulation of hateful beta-amyloid plaques in the brain. But they also found the protein p-tau217, which is considered today the most precise marker for the pathology. The results. The 6% of participants who tested positive for these biomarkers showed a four-fold increased risk of developing verbal memory problems and a decline in their cognitive speed a decade later. But science has been trying to refine this tool for years, looking for markers such as GFAP, which rises about ten years before symptoms appear. See the invisible. The blood test does not walk alone in this diagnostic revolution, since on the same day, The Lancet published a second study based on nearly 800 participants from the US and Canada that tests a new and sophisticated neuroimaging technology: the MK6240 PET plotter. Until now, visualizing the tau protein, which is one of those responsible for Alzheimer’s by accumulating in neurons, was a great challenge. But this new tracer promises to be much more sensitive, detecting twice as many positive cases in healthy people with amyloid accumulation compared to the standard used today. You have to wait. Before throwing the bells in the air, it should be noted that experts point out that this test not ready to be used as general population screening. The reason lies in mathematics, since the prevalence of asymptomatic Alzheimer’s in healthy middle-aged people remains low in absolute terms, so applying this test to everyone would generate a very high volume of false positives. That is, an increase in this protein that is not actually related to early Alzheimer’s. But logically, the fear, anxiety and the resulting cascade of confirmatory tests would collapse the health services that are already stressed, and furthermore, the drugs we have, despite the fact that they stop the effects of the disease in its earliest phases, are not yet definitive. That is why we must remain on the right path, but there is still a long way to go to get this disease under control. Images | Robina Weermeijer Testalize.me In Xataka | Alzheimer’s no longer seems irreversible: science allows brains with advanced damage to recover for the first time in animals

We have found a hidden “switch” of Alzheimer’s. And the best thing is that we have promising candidates to put it out

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Alzheimer’s is still one of the biggest medical challenges of our century, since we are facing a disease with a very important incidence and above all that entails a large number of social problems around it. Here research over the decade has focused on the accumulation of protein plaques beta-amyloid in the brain to explain it. However, the scientific community has begun to pay much more attention to an equally devastating factor: neuroinflammation. A new gene. Science continues to advance and one of the latest discoveries that has been made lies in the APOE4 genewhich is a known risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. And it is no wonder, since people who inherit this variant have a much higher probability of developing the disease, and often do so at younger ages. But now a research team has been investigating exactly why having this genetic variant predisposes one to Alzheimer’s, and the answer appears to lie in chronic inflammation. More specifically, in APOE4 carriersthe brain’s immune system overreacts, creating a toxic environment that damages neurons and accelerates cognitive decline. And at the center of this inflammatory storm, researchers have indicated to the enzyme cPLA2 as the main culprit. It’s a challenge. Knowing that cPLA2 plays a crucial role in the inflammatory cascade associated with Alzheimer’s, the objective is logically set turn it off permanently. However, inhibiting enzymes in the brain is not an easy task, since the brain is very well protected by the blood-brain barrier, which acts as a true customs control that allows only some very selected elements to pass through. That is why creating a drug that passes through it without causing side effects in other parts of the body is a great challenge. The strategies. To reach this goal, science is now doing computer simulations of thousands of molecules to be able to find those with the exact shape and properties to “fit” into the cPLA2 enzyme and deactivate it. Once this ‘key’ that fits the enzyme that looks like a lock is identified, candidate compounds can be refined for testing in animal models. Until now, research already has several selective cPLA2 inhibitors that have proven to be powerful and capable of penetrating the brain, making it possible to reduce neuroinflammation in the models studied. Personalized medicine. The study, supported by multiple leading institutions such as the National Institute on Aging and the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, is not only relevant for the design of the new drugs, but also for its personalized medicine approach. Looking back, clinical trials for Alzheimer’s have treated all patients equally, often resulting in million-dollar failures. But now, by targeting these new cPLA2 inhibitors specifically at neuroinflammation fueled by the APOE4 gene, scientists are creating tailored treatments for the most biologically vulnerable patients. Although we are still in a very early phase of research, it may take years to see a tangible result. Images | Robina Weermeijer In Xataka | Alzheimer’s no longer seems irreversible: science allows brains with advanced damage to recover for the first time in animals

Forgetting dreams when waking up seemed like an unimportant anecdote. A Spanish macro-study has linked it to Alzheimer’s

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Today, one of the great challenges that modern neurology has with the Alzheimer’s It is not just treating it, but detecting it before it shows its face, since right now there are several therapeutic options that manage to stop the progression of the disease. That is why our effort is to find biomarkers that warn patients that something is happening, and the last one is related to dreams. Spanish research. Based on the Vallecas project and promoted by the Reina Sofía Foundation or the CEIN Foundationand who has pointed out how not remembering dreams can be a risk marker for Alzheimer’s very premature. But to reach this conclusion, researchers have had to analyze a cohort of 1,049 people cognitively healthy older adults, who have been closely followed for a period of up to 10 years. In the end we are talking about a large amount of information that has intersected with the genetics and lifestyle of all patients, and even with the moment in which the first molecular markers of Alzheimer’s began to appear. The dreams. At first glance it might seem like an anecdotal correlation that what happens with our dreams has some relationship with Alzheimer’s, but the reality is that it has a very solid neurobiological basis. And to understand it we have to go to what is known as the default neural network, which is a set of brain regions that are activated when our mind is at rest, wandering or precisely dreaming. Scientific evidence accumulated in recent years has shown that the default neural network is highly vulnerable to Alzheimer’s pathology and is, in fact, one of the first areas to suffer structural and functional damage. In this way, if this network begins to fail in the earliest phases of the disease, it is logical to think that functions associated with it, such as the consolidation and memory of dreams, will be diminished. They have gone further. One of the most interesting points of this Spanish study is that it was not based solely on patient surveys, which may have reduced reliability. Here the researchers looked for important biomarkers, such as the presence of the APOE ε4 allele, which is a genetic variant that predisposes one to suffer from the sporadic form of the disease. In addition, they also analyzed the tau-217 protein, which today is one of the blood markers that indicates a possible Alzheimer’s disease in the early stages of the disease. And only with a blood sample. That is why these results now gain greater strength when it comes to relating the problem to dreams and Alzheimer’s. A paradigm shift. Don’t be scared if you woke up this morning without remembering what you dreamed, since this is completely normal and depends on many factors such as stress, the sleep phase in which we wake up or even age. Here the researchers only point to a sustained pattern of loss of dream memory in older people who, so far, do not have any obvious cognitive problems. That is why this discovery is purely clinical and preventive, since scanning the entire population is unfeasible due to cost and risks. However, asking a patient in consultation about their sleeping habits and their ability to remember what they dream about is free and non-invasive. But logically this has to be accompanied by an effective screening system to be able to diagnose the disease even before the first serious symptoms appear. Images | Slaapwijsheid.nl Robina Weermeijer In Xataka | Dementia is devastating largely because it arrives without warning: some researchers already predict it seven years in the future

Alzheimer’s leaves its mark decades before showing its face:; keeping vitamin D at bay is already a promising shield

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Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia remain one of the most complex medical puzzles of our era, standing out above all for the absence of treatments that completely stop the disease or even reverse it. But science continues to advance and has now focused on a preventive factor that could be in our hands from a young age: vitamin D. It keeps moving forward. The main study that has sparked interest was published at the beginning of this month of April in the magazine Neurology. And the objective of this was none other than to shed light on how our brain behaves decades before the classic symptoms of dementia appear. To get here, a total of 793 participants from the renowned Framingham Heart Study with an average age of 39 years were monitored. From here, the serum vitamin D of the patients began to be measured between 2002 and 2005, and then, at the age of 16, they underwent different scans to check the state of the brain. What was seen. In conclusion, the study pointed out that maintaining higher levels of vitamin D, greater than 30 nanograms per mL, during the ages of 30 to 40 is associated with less subsequent accumulation of the tau protein in the brain. Because it matters. The relevance of this discovery is crucial and to understand it, you just have to know that Alzheimer’s occurs because two factors mainly come together: Beta-amyloid protein plaques, which accumulate outside neurons. Neurofibrillary tangles of tau protein, which form within the brain cells themselves and are closely linked to neuronal death and cognitive decline. In this way, the effort of science right now is focused above all on blocking the formation of beta-amyloid plaques around neurons or preventing the tau protein from accumulating in our neurons. Although it is something really complicated. There is a nuance. Interestingly, the study found no association between midlife vitamin D levels and beta-amyloid accumulation. The protective effect is limited exclusively to the tau protein, especially in the brain regions where Alzheimer’s usually strikes its first blows. This is good news, as it narrows down the biological mechanisms involved and suggests that vitamin D could play a specific role in the pathways that regulate how tau is produced or eliminated over the years. There is small print. As they warn in the press release itself, this is a simple observational study. This means that it is true that people with higher vitamin D in middle age accumulated less tau protein, but the study cannot categorically state that vitamin D destroys tau protein on its own. Furthermore, the authors of the study themselves are categorical: this finding is not a medical prescription. There is no current evidence to justify that massively supplementing with vitamin D pills at age 40 will protect the brain against dementia. This simply paves the way for future research to truly test this relationship in a clinical trial and lead to new treatments. Images | catalyststuff freepik In Xataka | More than half of the population in Spain has a vitamin D deficiency. Now a study questions the benefits of supplementation

It is a serious mistake according to the latest study on Alzheimer’s

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To this day, Alzheimer’s disease continues to be one of the greatest challenges in medicine to understand why it occurs, to lead to better treatments. And although pharmacology is advancing in leaps and bounds to try to stop it, science makes it increasingly clear to us that lifestyle is our best weapon to prevent the disease. And we not only talk about the diet either physical exercisebut also of how the brain is ‘trained’ with writing or reading. Some activities that we are losing. New evidence. A new study published in the prestigious magazine Neurology has pointed out that having “cognitive enrichment” throughout life can reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s by 38% and delay the onset of the disease up to five years. Although here the question is how the brain can be enriched to avoid this devastating disease. A protective shield. The study is based on a small sample of 1939 peoplewith an average age of 80 years and with 75% women, who did not have any type of dementia at the beginning of the experiment. From here they began to follow them for eight years with different annual evaluations to determine the degree of dementia they had. But what exactly is “cognitive enrichment”? The team of researchers measured the exposure of these individuals to intellectually stimulating environments throughout their lives, which include such everyday and accessible habits as reading, writing, learning new languages, visiting museums or libraries, and having educational resources at home from childhood. The results. Once all the data was analyzed and cross-referenced, it was possible to see that the people who had the greatest cognitive enrichment showed an incidence of Alzheimer’s of 21%. This is a figure that increases as less intellectual and cultural activity is seen, until reaching an incidence of 34% in those patients who are in the 10% range of cognitive enrichment. Overall, the group with greater stimulation had a 38% lower risk of Alzheimer’s and a 36% lower risk of mild cognitive impairment. Delaying the disease. Beyond the risk percentages, the most important thing is the delay in the onset of the disease. Here the study found that people with a highly stimulated mind delayed the onset of Alzheimer’s in about five yearsmanifesting on average at 94 years of age compared to 88 years of age in the group with less stimulation. In the case of mild cognitive impairment, the “delay” achieved was even greater when the disease debuted at age 78 to age 85. What is it due to? One of the most fascinating aspects of the work comes from analyzing different corpses to see what was happening in their own brains depending on the lifestyle they lived when they were alive. And here it was seen that cognitive enrichment did not prevent amyloid plaques from forming, which is one of the causes of Alzheimer’s. What was seen here is that people who had kept their minds active with writing or reading showed much slower cognitive decline and better memory and thinking ability, even when their brains already showed the physical damage associated with dementia. It is as if the brain, having been trained and nurtured for decades, had built other pathways to continue functioning efficiently even though the main pathways began to collapse due to the ‘junk’ in the brain generated by the disease. There are nuances. In this case we have focused on an observational study based, in part, on the memory of the patients’ own experiences, such as what they did fifty years ago. This shows an important association, but it is not a direct coincidence or indisputable by other studies. However, the findings do not fall on deaf ears, but rather They add to a mountain of previous evidence which suggests that prior enrichment reduces the pathologies associated with Alzheimer’s. This makes science point to the recommendation of dedicate at least one hour a day to hobbies and reading can protect our brain. Technology against us. It is a reality that today some activities such as handwriting have declined in favor of writing on a tablet or computer to take notes or write emails. This is also added to the fact that audiobooks are beginning to have a lot of weight in our daily lives, which means that we train our brain less and less to put on and read a good book. In this way, keeping the brain busy with activities such as crossword puzzles, sudoku or any type of activity can be essential to stop diseases as devastating as this one. Images | Thought Catalog In Xataka | Alzheimer’s no longer seems irreversible: science allows brains with advanced damage to recover for the first time in animals

The new strategy against Alzheimer’s is not to attack, but to ‘reprogram’ the brain to clean itself

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Alzheimer’s can be resemble a great fortress with a large number of defenses that makes it very difficult for us. One of its most formidable defenses is blood brain barriera biological wall that protects the brain from harmful substances, but, ironically, also prevents the entry of most drugs. In Alzheimer’s patients, this barrier not only blocks help, but also becomes an accomplice to the disease. But we have already found a way to access and attack this pathology. The investigation. A team of scientists has been able to develop a radically new strategy to treat Alzheimer’s. Instead of trying to force entry into the brain, they have created smart nanocapsules that “reprogram” the barrier itself to do its job again: actively cleaning up toxic waste. Something that they have already tested in mice, and they have given spectacular results: a reduction of almost 45% of the amyloid load in just two hours and a cognitive recovery that was maintained for six months. The problem. In order to understand this advance, we must know exactly how ‘access’ to our brain works. The blood-brain barrier (BBB) ​​functions as an incredibly strict customs checkpoint. Like any border, it must have an entry and exit gate and in this case it is the LRP1 receiver. In the case of a healthy brain, LRP1 will be responsible for capturing beta-amyloid proteins and transporting them out of the brain for elimination. But in the case of a brain that is already old, and more markedly in Alzheimer’s, the amount of these LRP1 receptors is reduced, causing beta-amyloid to end up accumulating in our neurons, causing this disease to begin to show signs of presence. The discovery. In this case, the research team discovered that the fate of the LRP1 receptor depends on how it interacts with the molecules that bind to it. This is where the concept of “greedy,” or total bonding strength, comes into play. Very strong union. If a molecule clings too tightly to LRP1 (as beta-amyloid aggregates do in Alzheimer’s), the receptor activates an emergency pathway that sends it directly to be destroyed in the cellular “dumping ground” that is the lysosomes. This makes the problem even worse, as it eliminates the few exit doors left in the brain to take out the ‘garbage’. Moderate union. Or average greed. If the binding is “just right,” the receptor activates a non-destructive express transport pathway (the PACSIN2 pathway). This pathway creates a kind of tubular tunnel that transports cargo through the barrier quickly and safely, preserving the LRP1 receptor so it can continue working. In fact, this pathway even promotes the expression of more LRP1 receptors, which is what interests us most in this situation. The result. Based on this principle, the researchers designed nanocapsules called “polymersomes” (A₄₀-POs). They are tiny spheres decorated with a very specific number of “keys” (angiopep-2 ligands) on their surface. The number of these keys was calculated to achieve that perfect “medium greed”, with the aim of achieving the result similar to that of a moderate union. Results. When they administered these nanocapsules to model mice with advanced Alzheimer’s, the effects were surprising. A massive brain cleanse was achieved in just two hours, causing beta-amyloid protein levels in the mice’s brains to be reduced by 45%. In order to confirm that the protein was not just moving from place to place, its blood levels were measured. The result was an 8-fold increase, which shows that the blood-brain barrier was expelling the ‘waste’. The tests. In order to see the result in practice, behavioral tests such as the Morris water maze were carried out. Here treated Alzheimer’s mice showed significant improvement in spatial learning and memory. In this case, their performance became comparable to healthy mice without the disease. Most strikingly, these cognitive benefits persisted for up to six months after a single course of treatment, suggesting a long-term restorative effect. More than a drug. This work represents a paradigm shift. Most therapeutic strategies for Alzheimer’s treat the blood-brain barrier as an obstacle to overcome. This new approach treats it as a dysfunctional biological system that can be repaired by adding more exit doors for the organism to maintain this homeostasis. By using these nanocapsules with the “perfect keychain”, not only is the existing beta-amyloid removed, but the brain’s natural cleaning mechanism is reactivated. The treatment was able to restore levels of LRP1 and the beneficial transport pathway (PACSIN2) while reducing the destructive pathway. In essence, nanocapsules are not the drug itself, but a tool to reprogram the biology of the brain so that it heals itself. Although the results have been obtained in mouse models and the path to human trials is long and complex, this research opens a completely new and hopeful therapeutic avenue. The idea of ​​”repairing the barrier instead of just breaking it down” could be the key not only to Alzheimer’s, but also to other neurodegenerative diseases where transport and brain clearance play a key role. Images | Bhautik Patel In Xataka | We have a new “theory of everything” to understand Alzheimer’s. Its key is in some small granules

The body warns of Alzheimer’s long before the brain. The track is in the intestine

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Keep ‘healthy’ The bacteria we have in the intestine It is more important than we can think. During the last decade there are many voices that have arisen pointing to the relationship between our microbiota and other parts of our body. Now, a study has given light on the amazing connection that exists between digestive and metabolic health and the risk of developing diseases neurodegenerative as Alzheimer’s either Parkinson. A study that has used data of all kinds. Research, published in Science Advances, Not only identifies specific disorders that increase the risk of these diseases, but also demonstrates that these signals can be detected up to 15 years before neurological diagnosis, opening a new and promising via for Early detection and prevention. The work, which analyzed the clinical, genetic and proteomic data of hundreds of thousands of biobancos such as the UK Biobank, Finngen and Sail, is the most extensive of its kind and reinforces the importance of called intestine-corebro axisthe complex communication network that connects our digestive system with the central nervous. Digestive disorders and Alzheimer’s. The researchers analyzed the association of 155 digestive, endocrine, metabolic and nutritional disorders with the future risk of Alzheimer and Parkinson. The results are revealing. For Alzheimer’s, it was found that previous diagnoses of the following conditions significantly increased the risk: Gastritis and duodenitis Esophageal reflux disease (esophagitis) Diabetes (all types) Vitamin D deficiency Electrolyte disorders and acid-base balance Functional intestinal disorders (such as irritable intestine syndrome) There are also warning signs for Parkinson. A disease that is also neurodegenerative and is iconicly characterized with a constant tremor, among many other signs. In this case, the pathologies that could be an alert sign to generate this disease were: Dyspepsia (indigestion) Diabetes (dependent and independent of insulin) Functional intestinal disorders The importance of being a stratified study. This means that the data were divided into windows from 1 to 5, 5 to 10 and 10 to 15 years before diagnosis. This is something really important, since researchers could confirm the theory that the increase in risk is not something that happens just after the appearance of the first neurological symptoms, but it is a process that is created over more than a decade. For example, a diagnosis of non -insulin -dependent diabetes between 10 and 15 years before was associated with a 71% greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s. The importance of an early diagnosis. And it is that diagnosing a neurodegenerative disease so in advance is the best asset we have to avoid its most unwanted effects. Right now Alzheimer is an incurable disease, but There are drugs that stop the disease. From here lies the importance of having an early diagnosis, since the sooner the timely treatment begins, the more difficult it will be to progress to the worst stages. It also has protection functions. Curiously, it has been seen that a hemorrhoid diagnosis was associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer’s. The authors speculate that this could be due to a survival bias: the serious conditions that are sometimes associated with hemorrhoids could have a higher mortality rate, which would reduce the probability that these patients live enough to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Genetics or lifestyle? One of the most counterintuitive findings in the study has to do with genetics. The researchers calculated the polygenic risk scores (PRS), which is a measure of genetic predisposition to a disease, and compared them. They discovered that patients who developed Alzheimer’s or Parkinson and also had one of these digestive or metabolic disorders, on average, had a lower genetic risk score than those who developed the neurological disease in isolation. Inheritance does not matter so much. These results can translate into that the person with intestinal comorbidity, environmental and lifestyle factors They play a much more decisive role in the development of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s than the genetic inheritance itself. It is the evidence that we needed to reinforce the idea that the disease is not only in our genetic material, but that the environment and our decisions can intervene in its development. Towards a multimodal predictive model. The true qualitative leap of the study is the creation of a multimodal prediction model. Instead of based on a single type of data, scientists combined four pillars of information: clinical, genetic, proteomic data (with the analysis of 1,463 biomarkers) and demographic. The result was a model with a predictive capacity much higher than that of any individual paradigm. For Alzheimer’s, the combined model reached a 0.90 precision (AUC), a very high level for this type of predictions. It is interesting to note that the model that excluded clinical data, but maintained genetics, proteomics and demography, obtained almost identical precision (0.89), which suggests that blood biomarkers already capture much of the biological information that underlies clinical diagnoses. A diagnosis based on an analytical. Among the most influential biomarkers were found GLIAL FIBRARRARARY ACID PREIIN (GFAP) and the light chain neurofilament (NFL), both known as indicators of neuronal damage, which validates the biological robustness of the model. This approach demonstrates that the integration of different “omics” (genomic, proteomic) with clinical data is the way to follow for truly early and personalized detection, long before cognitive symptoms or irreversible motors appear. The team has even developed an interactive web platform so that other researchers can explore the results, promoting transparency and reproducibility. Images | Weermeijer Robina Julien Tromeur In Xataka | We have a new “theory of all” to understand Alzheimer’s. Your key is in small granules

Scientists have a new very powerful tool to fight Alzheimer’s and Parkinson: quantum computers

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To solve most of the problems that scientists expect to be able to address in the future with Quantum computers capable of amending their own mistakes, such as optimization, those in the field of cryptography or artificial intelligenceit will be necessary have several million cubits. It can even, that hundreds of millions of cubits. The most advanced quantum processor currently IBM has itand it has just over a thousand cubits, so it is evident that many technological challenges remain that it is necessary to solve. The interesting thing is that there is no single way to go through this path. Organizations that are investigating in the field of quantum computing work in several different cubits technologiesand each of them is in a different degree of development. IBM, Intel and Google are some of the big companies that have opted for superconductor cubits, but also do so smaller ones, such as Atlantic Quantum, IQM, Anyon Systems, Rigetti Computing or Bleximo. In fact, if we stick to the number of companies that are working on this type of quantum bits it is reasonable to conclude that this is the technology that has greater support and greater investment, so, in some way, it is the one that goes in the lead. This strategy is probably what will help us to have more cubits, but it is also more prone to make mistakes than ion traps cubits, which are one of the alternatives to superconductors. In addition, these last cubits are characterized by working at a temperature of about 20 millikelvin, which are approximately -273 degrees Celsius, with the purpose of operating with the greater degree of isolation of the possible environment. Ion traps are given great proteins Ion traps are currently the main alternative to superconductor cubits. This is the technology in which they are working, among other companies, Ionq and Honeywell, and is characterized by using ionized atoms, and, therefore, with a non -neutral global electric charge. This property allows them to be isolated and confined inside an electromagnetic field, although this is only the starting point. From here Ionq acts on the quantum state of its cubits with ion traps cooling them to reduce the level of computational noise and uses lasers just then to operate with them. However, it does not use a single laser; Use one for each ionand also a global laser that acts on all of them simultaneously. Honeywell also uses ionized and laser atoms, but the procedure used to establish the intertwining between two ions and act on them with a laser is different from that used by Ionq. For scientists it is crucial to understand the folding of proteins that triggers Alzheimer’s or Parkinson Parkinson Precisely a team of researchers from this last company and the German emerging company specialized in quantum quantum computing To do something amazing: Solve protein folding problems with up to 12 amino acids. To carry it out they designed a quantum optimization method that seeks to find the optimal configuration of protein folding. Expressed in this way it seems complex, and it is, but the really important thing, and with what is worth it, it is that these quantum computers thanks to the appropriate algorithm are able to help scientists Understand the protein folding mechanism that triggers diseases such as Alzheimer’s or the Parkinson. And understand this phenomenon well is the first step towards the elaboration of effective treatment. This result is very promising, but there is still a lot of work to do so that quantum computers help us in front of these diseases. On the one hand, folding models must evolve to be more reliable and realistic. And, in addition, the classic algorithm that is responsible for refining the results delivered by the quantum algorithm should be more precise. Even so, the work of these researchers is an exceptionally promising starting point. Image | Ionq More information | Arxiv In Xataka | Quantum computers threaten encryption technologies. This is the reason why we do not have to panic

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