Alzheimer’s – mitochondrial cascade hypothesis

This post is for the science-oriented people among us!  Thanks to science-oriented Angie for sharing the article.

I thought this was a worthwhile article on a competing theory of Alzheimer’s — that AD is caused because gene variants “inhibit mitochondria from supplying energy to neurons, causing them to die.”  (Energy is in the form of oxygen and glucose.)  One researcher has called this the “Alzheimer’s disease mitochondrial cascade hypothesis.”

The prevailing theory for the last few decades is the “amyloid hypothesis” — that AD is caused by amyloid plaques.  One other competing theory is that the cause of AD is the protein tau.  (UCSF is conducting a lot of clinical research brought to light by the tau hypothesis.)

Continue reading if mitochondrial function of neurons is of interest!