Mutant cholesterol fights off dementia

Browsing through the journal section in the university library, I came across the Scientific American magazine; I was excited to see what it was all about as I’ve never read it before. I stumbled across an article that reads “Mutant cholesterol fends off dementia”, completely puzzled by this, I began reading it.

Most individuals associate cholesterol with obesity and cardiovascular  disease, but ever growing evidence shows that lipids have great importance in the health of the brain, where almost a quarter of the body’s cholesterol residues.

According to the article, a new study has found that a common alteration to a gene that controls the size of cholesterol particle slows a person’s rate of dementia and protects against Alzheimer’s disease. This is good news as a sizeable population of the elderly in the UK suffer from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Researchers from the journal of the American Medical Association reported that individuals with the mutation – a swap of one amino acid (isoleucine) for another (valine) in the gene for cholesterol ester transfer protein (CETP) had significantly slower memory decline. Although what was meant by “significant” was not mentioned in the article. It also went on to say that those who harboured two valine alleles experienced cognitive decline 51 percent more slowly than those with isoleucine and had a 70 percent reduction in their risk for developing Alzheimer’s.

So in a couple of years, will drugs be available, which can bring about a mutation in the gene for CETP?