Oxidative stress plays an important role in neurodegenerative dementias

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Oxidative stress associated with dementia may be a cause and not an effect of Alzheimer's, suggests a study with fruit flies from the US.

"This is exciting because antioxidants may prove to be a good therapeutic approach to [prevent] Alzheimer's disease and ameliorate human neurodegeneration," said lead author Dora Dias-Santagata in a statement. Although the mechanism of Alzheimer's is not clear, more support is gathering for the build-up of plaque from proteins deposits. The deposits are associated with an increase in brain cell damage and death from oxidative stress. However, whether oxidative stress is a cause or a result of disease is not clear, said the researchers behind the new study."In this study, we provide substantial in vivo evidence supporting a causative role for oxidative stress in tau [protein]-induced neurodegeneration," wrote Dias-Santagata in The Journal of Clinical Investigation. The research gives great hope to a dietary/nutritional approach to improve brain health and curb the rise in Alzheimer's and dementia around the world.

The fundamental research, by scientists from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston and Howard University in Washington, used genetic and pharmacological approaches to change the genetic expression of transgenic fruit flies so that they would express a disease-related mutant form of human tau protein.Two different approaches was used by the researchers - on one hand they manipulated genes responsible for the production of anti-oxidant proteins and on the other hand administered the potent anti-oxidant vitamin E to the mutant flies.

The US-based researchers report that reduction in the activity of two anti-oxidant proteins - superoxide dismutase (SOD) and thioredoxin reductases (Trxr) - as a result of their genetic manipulation led to increasing neurodegeneration in the brain of the mutant flies, while administration of vitamin E reversed the effect. Control flies that did not express the human tau protein did not show any signs of neurodegeneration, they said. Both results are said to indicate that oxidative stress plays an important role in neurodegenerative dementias, at least in those where the tau protein is involved, and could therefore offer a nutritional/ dietary approach to improving brain health.

More fibre choice for consumers
The resistant starch ingredient Hi-maize has been launched as a stand alone product in Europe, which for the first time will allow consumers to supplement their own diets with additional fibre.

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