27/SEP/11
Press Release 27 September 2011
International Symposium on Cholesterol and Alzheimers’s Disease
Experts relate high cholesterol levels in maturity with the development of Alzheimer’s disease in the elderly.
The conclusions drawn by forty researchers from all over the world who attended a symposium organised by Neuron Bio will lead to a quickening of the pace of development of neuroprotective drugs.
Forty international researchers meeting in Granada on 26 and 27 September discussed the relationship between high cholesterol levels during maturity with the development of Alzheimer’s disease in the elderly. Some of the most important experts on the subject, including Pablo Martínez, Scientific Director of the Research Unity for the Alzheimer’s Disease Project (UIPA), Ana Frank, Director of the Neurology Service at the La Paz Hospital in Madrid, Tobias Hartmann of the Saarland University in Germany, Ling Li from Minnesota University in the USA and Jesús Benavides from the Paris-Sud University in France, among others.
The main conclusions arrived at were:
- The most recent research undertaken within the fields of epidemiology and genomics indicates that the metabolism of cholesterol is involved in neurodegenerative processes and particularly in the development of Alzheimer’s disease.
- The quantity of cholesterol present in SNC cells determines the plasticity of the neurons, their resistance to stress conditions and the production of toxic proteins such as the beta-amyloid peptide.
- The development of drugs capable of regulating cerebral cholesterol levels will help to prevent, or at least delay, the onset of the disease.
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