Caffeine—and 23 other compounds—may have the potential to boost the power of an enzyme in the brain shown to protect against dementia, according to a study with mice.
“This work could help advance efforts to develop drugs that increase levels of this enzyme in the brain, creating a chemical ‘blockade’ against the debilitating effects of neurodegenerative disorders,” says Hui-Chen Lu, professor of psychological and brain sciences at Indiana University.
Previously, Lu and colleagues found that the enzyme, called NMNAT2, plays two roles in the brain: a protective function to guard neurons from stress and a “chaperone function” to combat misfolded proteins called tau, which accumulate in the brain as “plaques” due to aging. That study was the first to reveal the “chaperone function” in the enzyme.
Misfolded proteins have been linked to neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s diseases, as well as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of these disorders, affects over 5.4 million Americans, with numbers expected to rise as the population ages.
