Lithium element opens new hope for Alzheimer's treatment

A research team from Harvard Medical School (USA) discovered that the natural element lithium may be related to the pathogenesis and treatment of Alzheimer's - a degenerative neurological disease that affects more than 35 million people worldwide , including nearly 1 million French people, characterized by the formation and accumulation of two types of proteins in the brain - plaques (amyloid-beta) and tangles (tau), which damage nerve cells.

According to a VNA reporter in Paris, research published in the journal Nature shows that lithium concentrations in the brain tissue of Alzheimer's patients are significantly reduced.

When mice were fed a lithium-deficient diet, amyloid plaques increased; conversely, supplementation with a new salt, lithium orotate, prevented amyloid formation, reduced tau protein degradation, neuroinflammation, and myelin degeneration—the entire mechanism that leads to cognitive decline. The mice even recovered their memory.

Compared to lithium carbonate used in previous trials, lithium orotate is superior in that it is not “trapped” by amyloid plaques. Thanks to that, scientists hope to shorten the research process and start testing on early-stage Alzheimer’s patients in the next 4–5 years.

However, experts warn against arbitrarily supplementing lithium orotate because the safe dose in the elderly has not been determined.

They also emphasize that Alzheimer's is a multifactorial disease, so lithium is likely to be only part of a combination treatment regimen.

Currently, there are about 150 other compounds being tested worldwide, opening up new hope, but treating Alzheimer's disease is still extremely complicated./.

(Vietnam News Agency/Vietnam+)

Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/nguyen-to-lithium-mo-hy-vong-moi-cho-dieu-tri-benh-alzheimer-post1056811.vnp