WASHINGTON, Feb 16: Low-protein diet may slow down Alzheimer’s and boost memory, a new study has found.
Mice with many of the pathologies of Alzheimer’s Disease showed fewer signs of the disease when given a protein-restricted diet supplemented with specific amino acids every other week for four months.
Mice at advanced stages of the disease were put on the new diet.
They showed improved cognitive abilities over their non-dieting peers when their memory was tested using mazes. In addition, fewer of their neurons contained abnormal levels of a damaged protein, called “tau” which accumulates in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.
Dietary protein is the major dietary regulator of a growth hormone known as IGF-1, which has been associated with ageing and diseases in mice and several diseases in older adults.
Upcoming studies by University of Southern California, Professor Valter Longo, the study’s corresponding author, will attempt to determine whether humans respond similarly.
“We had previously shown that humans deficient in Growth Hormone receptor and IGF-I displayed reduced incidence of cancer and diabetes.
“Although the new study is in mice, it raises the possibility that low protein intake and low IGF-I may also protect from age-dependent neurodegeneration,” said Longo.
“Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of neurodegeneration are a major burden on society, and it is a rising priority for this nation to develop new approaches for preventing and treating these conditions, since the frequencies of these disorders will be rising as the population ages over the next several decades,” Pinchas Cohen, dean of the USC Davis School said in a statement.
The team found that a protein-restricted diet reduced levels of IGF-1 circulating through the body by 30 to 70 percent, and caused an eight-fold increase in a protein that blocks IGF-1’s effects by binding to it.
IGF-1 helps the body grow during youth but is also associated with several diseases later in life in both mice and humans, according to the study published in Ageing Cell. (PTI)
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