Doug Whitney May Have the Key to Aiding Alzheimer's

    In this NYTimes article, Doug Whitney has been the focus of research for 14 years due to the fact he doesn’t have Alzheimer's Disease. This wouldn’t be anything special except for the fact that he was expected to show symptoms in his 50s, but now he is 76 with no signs. His family has the rarest mutation called Presenilin 2, which is shown to cause early-onset Alzheimer’s disease and has been seen in the family with memory problems starting to show between the ages of 44 and 53. After a while without seeing any issues, Mr. Whitney decided to go through with genetic testing and was confirmed to have the mutation, but no symptoms, which led to further research.

Alzheimer's is seen by the abnormal accumulation of two proteins in the brain: amyloid, followed by tau. Amyloid starts to clump together years before symptoms, and tau forms tangles after the accumulation of amyloid. It was found that Mr. Whitney’s brain was full of amyloids, but didn’t have nearly as many tau, which suggested that his brain is resistant to tau aggregation and spreading. Looking at his DNA, researchers have discovered that there are a couple of variations that his relatives didn’t have that could be helping with the prevention of Alzheimer’s. It was found that he has an excess of heat shock proteins that help keep proteins from folding incorrectly. This excess may be the reason why there aren’t as many misfolded proteins, especially tau, in his brain, since it can prevent them from spreading. There are many theories on why this has happened, but it is still being tested to find that piece of the puzzle.

Alzheimer’s disease is a disease that has no cure and affects many people and their families. This research could be a big breakthrough for those people and give hope for a cure or at least assistance for those who have it. I believe that this research is extremely important, since I know people whose family has a history of diseases that cause brain deterioration, and this could help ease their worries. Even if this doesn’t lead to a cure, it’ll help guide our understanding of these issues and get us one step closer.