50Plus.com - Alzheimer's breakthrough?

50Plus.com - Alzheimer's breakthrough?: "Alzheimer's breakthrough?

Article By: Cynthia Ross Cravit

A Canadian-led research team has found a defective gene that could lead to tests to identify people at risk of Alzheimer's disease and drug therapies to protect them.
Discovery of a defective gene may help scientists develop tests to identify people at greatest risk of Alzheimer's disease and tailor-made drug therapies to help them.
'It's another clue to the way in which this disease comes about, another piece of the puzzle,' Dr. Peter St. George-Hyslop, director of the centre for research in neurodegenerative diseases at the University of Toronto and co-leader of the study, told the National Post.
'Every time you get a piece of the puzzle and you can relate it to something else in the puzzle, you're that much closer to knowing what the picture on the puzzle is,' he added.
The gene, called SORL1, normally directs proteins away from the “forbidden” zones of the brain. It is here that molecular toxin can build up and eventually destroy brain cells in people with Alzheimer’s. Researchers believe that defective copies of the gene are found inside many people who will eventually develop the debilitating neurodegenerative disease.
Currently, about 435,000 Canadians have Alzheimer's and other related dementias. The disease, which has no cure, is expected to impact more people as the population ages. According to the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, an estimated 750,000 Canadians will have Alzheimer’s disease or a related dementia by 2031. "