Thursday, February 07, 2008

170 Alzheimer's develops literally overnight

This is pretty scary:
An advanced imaging study has captured the fact that amyloid plaques, the harbingers of Alzheimer's disease, can develop in just 24 hours.
That means between yesterday and today, you go from being okay to having Alzheimer's. Just like that. I'm sure it takes a while for the damage to show up in your actions, though.
Once the plaques develop, damage is evident in nearby nerve cells almost immediately...
"Knowing that plaque occurs quickly implies that something initiates it," (Dr. Bradley Hyman) said. "That is the next question to be answered."....
The studies showed that nerve cell changes associated with Alzheimer's disease appear within days. The results confirm suspicions that plaque formation is a primary event in the abnormal cell activity that underlies Alzheimer's disease.
It makes me think of things I've read about the Black Death in medieval Europe. Some strains were so virulent that you went to sleep healthy and "woke up dead" as they say--getting it and dying overnight. Scary to think AD comes on that fast...and to have it happen that way, there does have to be a trigger, right?
(screenprint)

2 comments:

Mauigirl said...

That's what I'm thinking too, Bert. Maybe there is a contagion involved? Or some environmental factor?

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this Alzheimer Information.