People drink for varied reasons. Some of them drink just for sole socialization, others do it as a form of relaxation. But it’s also common to see people drinking simply because they can’t get enough of alcohol. As the fun goes on while drinking, no one would care to think about the negative effects of alcohol. But when starts to get sick due to alcohol, then it becomes a whole different thing.
Now, there’s a study saying that alcohol is linked to Alzheimer’s disease. This is the kind of disease that most, if not all, of us would want to avoid as much as possible. If you are worried, then, you should make the decision to quit drinking.
This is an addictin blog that helps people quit drugs and alcohol addiction. By getting sober through alcohol recovery programs, one will only be getting the benefits of having long life, and now, to be alzheimer’s -free.
It may be time to rethink that evening tipple – new research has found that drinking alcohol is linked to Alzheimer’s disease…
Some of the genes affected by alcohol and inflammation are also implicated in processes that clear amyloid beta – the protein that forms globs of plaques in the brain and which contributes to neuronal damage and the cognitive impairment associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
This is according to research by the University of Illinois at Chicago.
But wait, we thought that alcohol could protect against Alzheimer’s disease?
That’s right, previous studies have indicated that alcohol has a protective effect while other studies linked alcohol to the development of this neurocognitive disease.
Another recent study suggested that alcohol consumption, and its impact on the immune system and inflammation in the brain, may be the vehicle through which alcohol might exert its influence on the development of Alzheimer’s disease.
However, no previous studies have directly evaluated which genes are affected by alcohol in cells in the brain involved in protecting against Alzheimer’s disease.
The science
For those of you who want to know how the latest study was done, researchers exposed rat microglial cells to alcohol, pro-inflammatory chemicals called cytokines, or alcohol and cytokines in the lab for 24 hours.
They then looked at changes in gene expression under each condition. They also looked at the impact of alcohol exposure on the cells’ ability to engulf amyloid beta.
Dr Douglas Feinstein, professor of anesthesiology in the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine, along with other researchers wanted to determine which genes were affected by both alcohol and high levels of inflammation in microglial cells. These are cells that support neural cells in the brain and elsewhere in the body. One of their functions is to engulf and digest the amyloid beta protein plaques characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease in a process known as phagocytosis. Microglial cells are also known to express high levels of inflammatory markers due to chronic alcohol exposure.
They found that gene expression was altered for 312 genes under the alcohol condition; for 3 082 for the pro-inflammatory condition, and 3 552 for the alcohol and pro-inflammatory condition. Changes in gene expression – either an increase or decrease in expression compared to normal levels – averaged about 16 percent and ranged from a 50 percent decrease to a 72 percent increase. Just a handful of genes were involved in both phagocytosis and inflammation.
