Scientists explore connection between aging fat and Alzheimer’s

Dr. Xin-Yun Lu in the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University laboratory. Credit: Phil Jones, Senior Photographer, Augusta University Scientists want to know whether our aging fat cells are important to the onset and progression of Alzheimer’s. They have evidence that as we age, our fat becomes less efficient at producing a hormone that helps support the growth and survival of neurons and helps regulate their activity. The result can be neurons in areas of the brain important to learning and memory become dysfunctional, degenerate and we develop Alzheimer’s. "What happens to neurons, that is really what we are interested in," says Dr. Xin-Yun Lu, molecular behavioral neuroscientist at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Translational Neuroscience. Lu is principal investigator on a $3.5 million grant from the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health that is helping further explore the possibility that improving the function of our older fat may just help our brains. The hormone is adiponectin, which is made by fat cells , circulates in our blood and enters our brain. Inside fat cells , its production is regulated by peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma, or PPAR-γ, a transcription factor that’s essential for early stage fat cells to become mature, fully functioning ones. "We know when you have Alzheimer’s your adiponectin is low, now we want to make sure this is actually a cause," Lu says. Both adiponectin and PPAR-γ have been implicated in Alzheimer’s and delivering adiponectin to the brain has been shown to improve cognition in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s. PPAR-γ agonists, which increase adiponectin levels, already are used to lower cholesterol and blood glucose levels and have been tried in Alzheimer’s as well. However, investigators studying the agonists’ potential in […]

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