Alzheimer's disease, a neurodegenerative disease characterized by cognitive decline. It is estimated that more than 30 million people have been affected worldwide.
Coukos, a professor at Duke University's department of medicine, and his team announced the discovery of a new protein called il-33, which appears to prevent the progression of Alzheimer's disease.
The main goal of professor Coukos and his research team is to make gains in the early prevention of Alzheimer's disease. The "il-33" protein found by the team is found in all types of cells in the body, and is particularly abundant in the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord).
They followed 30 adults, 16 healthy and 14 with mild cognitive impairment, for three years. They found that people with mild cognitive impairment had significantly lower levels of the protein il-33 in their serum, and that tangles form when there are too many deposits of A beta opal in the brain. The "plaques" and "tangles" build up over time, causing connections between nerve cells to be blocked and eventually nerve cells to die and brain tissue to fail. To the normal person, A beta opal is not terrible, even if every day, but because of the presence of the "il-33" this "scavenger", does not produce cumulative.
The team used mice, which were wired with a weak electric current around the site. Normal mice were alerted to the danger and stopped approaching, but the cognitively impaired mice continued to touch the net. When mice with cognitive impairment were injected with il-33 for two weeks and then put back into the "dangerous" interaction, the researchers were surprised to find that the mice became more intelligent and did not make the same mistakes when they were electrocuted by a net. Dissection also showed that the white plaques in the brains of these mice were significantly reduced. Meanwhile, the brain waves also showed that mice with Alzheimer's developed cognitive impairment in the same way as people with Alzheimer's, but the injection of il-33 largely eliminated the cognitive impairment.

It is generally accepted that early treatment can delay or prevent progression of the disease if the patient is in a preclinical or mild cognitive impairment stage. Unfortunately, most Alzheimer's patients are diagnosed in the middle and late stages of the disease, when the nerve cells are dead and there is no chance of a reversal.

"This discovery provides the scientific community with a better understanding of the complex and multietiological nature of cognitive impairment and a new way to develop drugs to treat it. "Professor Coukos said the tests were significant and suggested that the symptoms of Alzheimer's could be reversed.

Professor Coukos said successful clinical trials could lead to the maximum restoration of brain function in 20 to 30 per cent of people with mild cognitive impairment or with mild Alzheimer's disease.In the later stage, the teratogenic and toxic animal test will be carried out, and the clinical application is still a long way away. They will continue to do more in-depth research.