Alzheimer’s: study if a 19-year-old is the first case of the disease

The ace dementiasas the Alzheimer’s diseaseare not part of aging normal, because as people age, the likelihood of developing this condition increases. neurodegenerative disorder.

However, a probable case identified in China It has caught the attention of neuroscience around the world. This is a young He started having memory problems when he was 17. Now you have 19 years old and was diagnosed with dementia.

His case was investigated by investigators through different types of evidence. It was now published in the magazine Alzheimer’s Disease Journal.

After carrying out the tests, researchers from Beijing Capital Medical University diagnosed the teenager as a “probable” case of Alzheimer’s disease, which is the most common dementia in older people.

They believe that if the diagnosis is correct, it will be the youngest person known to have the disease. The main risk factor for the disease being advanced age, the case of the young man suffering from the disease at 19 years old would be very unusual.

A previous study found that four new diagnoses per 1,000 people aged 65 to 74 are made each year, 32 new diagnoses per 1,000 people aged 75 to 84, and 76 new diagnoses per 1,000 people aged 85 and over. more.

The exact causes of Alzheimer’s disease are still unknown, but a classic feature of the disease is the accumulation of two proteins in the brain: beta-amyloid and tau protein.

In people with Alzheimer’s disease, beta-amyloid is usually found in large amounts on the outside of neurons, which are brain cells. Tau “tangles” are found in axons, the long, thin projections of neurons.

However, scans showed no signs of these features in the 19-year-old’s brain. The researchers detected abnormally high levels of a protein called “p-tau181” in the patient’s cerebrospinal fluid. This usually occurs before the formation of tau tangles in the brain.

Almost all cases of Alzheimer’s disease in people under 30 are due to faulty inherited genes.. In fact, the previous youngest case – a 21-year-old man – had a genetic cause.

Three genes have been linked to Alzheimer’s disease in young people: amyloid precursor protein (APP), presenilin 1 (PSEN1) and presenilin 2 (PSEN2).

These genes are involved in the production of a protein fragment called beta-amyloid peptide, a precursor to the aforementioned beta-amyloid.

If the gene is faulty, it can lead to an abnormal buildup of beta-amyloid in the brain, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, explained Dr Osman Shabir, a researcher at the University of Sheffield, UK, in The conversation.

It is enough for one of the APP, PSEN1 or PSEN2 genes to be defective to develop Alzheimer’s disease. However, in the case of the young man in China a genetic cause has been ruled outas the researchers sequenced the patient’s entire genome and found no known genetic mutations.

Additionally, no one in the teen’s family has a history of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia.

The young man did not suffer from any other illnesses, infections or head injuries that could explain his condition. It is clear that whatever form of Alzheimer’s you suffer from, it is extremely rare.

At the age of 17, the patient had started having problems concentrating in studies. A year later, he lost his short-term memory. She couldn’t remember if she had eaten or done her homework. The memory loss became so severe that he had to drop out of high school (he was in his final year).

Common cognitive tests used to detect memory loss confirmed a probable diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. The results indicated that his memory was severely impaired.

Brain scans also showed that his hippocampus – a part of the brain involved in memory – had shrunk. It is a typical early sign of dementia.

The diagnosis of Alzheimer’s in the young man remains to be confirmed. Another method, such as a brain biopsy, which is sometimes performed on people who have already died, would be too risky an option for young people.

Therefore, understanding the biological mechanisms that led to the development of the disease will be difficult. For now, that would be an unresolved mystery for medicine.

Jia Jianping, who led the study, called for more attention to the possibility of Alzheimer’s disease showing up in young people.

Similarly, cases of early Alzheimer’s are known to be on the rise in young patients. According to the Mayo Clinic, early-onset Alzheimer’s disease is a rare form of dementia that affects people under the age of 65.

About 5-6% of people with Alzheimer’s disease develop symptoms before the age of 65. It is estimated that in the United States alone, between 300,000 and 360,000 people have the early form of the disease.

Most people with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease develop symptoms of the disease when they are between 30 and 60 years old.

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