A is for Autophagy and Alzheimer's

Abstract

Improved understanding of the underlying cellular dysfunction and resultant neuropathology of sporadic Alzheimer's disease (AD) is needed to stem the anticipated public health crisis due to this increasingly common neurodegenerative disease. The four main risk factors for sporadic AD are age, female gender, genetic carriage of the APOE4 allele and type two diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Each of these four risk factors is associated with impaired and/or dysfunctional autophagy suggesting that perturbation of autophagy is a root contributor to AD. This article discusses normal cellular autophagy and how each of the named AD risk factors impacts autophagy; in addition currently existing interventions that favorably support the autophagic process are presented.