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| A new treatment could offer a breakthrough in the battle against dementia |
A NEW treatment could offer a breakthrough in the battle against dementia by boosting a protein that prevents breast cancer.
The protein is essential to healthy mental function but is depleted by the onset of brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
Scientists have found that mutations to the gene that creates the protein increases the risk of breast cancer.
Studies show it is crucial in repairing damaged DNA but this is reduced in the brains of people with dementia.
Scientists are hopeful a revolutionary therapy will now be found. A mutation in the BRCA1 gene that produces the protein can fail to prevent tumours which then spread.
It increases the risk of breast cancer by up to 80 per cent.
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| Dementia now affects 850,000 people in the UK |
Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie, 40, underwent a double mastectomy when she discovered she carried such a defect.
She inherited the BRCA1 mutation from her mother and had surgery in 2013 after being told she was at very high risk of breast cancer.
Study author Dr Lennart Mucke, director of the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease and a professor of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco, is hopeful that the discovery will lead to a ground-breaking treatment.
He said: “Therapeutic manipulation of repair factors such as BRCA1 may ultimately be used to prevent neuronal damage and cognitive decline in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
“By normalising the levels or function of BRCA1, it may be possible to protect neurons from excessive DNA damage and prevent the many detrimental processes it can set in motion.”
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| Star Angelina Jolie has gene defect |
He added: “It’s extremely interesting that one molecule can be involved in two apparently opposing conditions – cancer, in which too many cells are born, and
neurodegenerative disease, in which too many cells die off.”
When BRCA1 levels were reduced in mice, researchers saw DNA damage and brain shrinkage. It also caused learning and memory problems.
In addition, post-mortem analysis of levels of BRCA1 in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients showed it was reduced by 65 to 75 per cent.
The results were published in the journal Nature Communications.
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| Dementia costs £26billion a year to treat |
This research suggests a DNA repair process is reduced in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease
There are no current treatments to boost proteins from the BRCA1 gene. But the Gladstone Institute is testing whether increasing its levels can prevent or reverse brain degeneration and memory loss. Dementia now affects 850,000 people in the UK and costs £26billion a year to treat.
Samia al Qadhi, chief executive of Breast Cancer Care, said: “This is an interesting study, highlighting how a fault in the BRCA1 gene not only greatly increases the risk of developing breast cancer, but could increase the risk of other diseases like Alzheimer’s.”
Dr Simon Ridley, of Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “Our cells have sophisticated mechanisms to repair damage to DNA code quickly and accurately.
“When this process goes awry, as happens in cancer and other diseases, cells become damaged.
“This research suggests a DNA repair process is reduced in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease.
But it is too soon to conclude that boosting DNA damage repair could improve symptoms.”
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