Observations placeholder
Dementia Alzheimers and copper and iron imbalance
Identifier
006886
Type of Spiritual Experience
None
Background
It would have been interesting to know just how many of these poor people had been prescribed iron tablets.
A description of the experience
Biometals. 2012 Apr;25(2):337-50. doi: 10.1007/s10534-011-9504-8. Epub 2011 Nov 12. Transition metal abnormalities in progressive dementias. Akatsu H, Hori A, Yamamoto T, Yoshida M, Mimuro M, Hashizume Y, Tooyama I, Yezdimer EM. Choju Medical Institute, Fukushimura Hospital, Toyohashi, Japan.
Abnormal distributions of transition metals inside the brain are potential diagnostic markers for several central nervous system diseases, including Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), bipolar disorders and depression.
To further explore this possibility, the total concentrations of iron, zinc, copper, manganese, aluminum, chromium and cadmium were measured in post-mortem hippocampus and amygdala tissues taken from AD, DLB and Control patients.
A statistically significant near fifty percent reduction in the total copper levels of AD patients was observed in both the hippocampus and amygdala.
The statistical power of the hippocampus and amygdala copper analysis was found to be 86 and 74% respectively.
No statistically significant deviations in the total metal concentrations were found for zinc, manganese, chromium or aluminum.
Iron was found to be increased by 38% in AD amygdala tissues, but was unchanged in AD hippocampus tissues. Accounting for differences in tissue water content, as a function of both tissue type and disease state, revealed more consistencies with previous literature. To aid in the design of future experiments, the effect sizes for all tissue types and metals studied are also presented.
PMID: 22080191