In recent years, scientists around the world have been probing an unexpected trend: The risk of developing cancer seems to have an inverse relationship with the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
Research published earlier this year in Brain, in which researchers autopsied study subjects to verify whether they had in fact died with Alzheimer’s disease, further solidifies the hypothesis, experts tell The Scientist.
Thanks to those data, which showed participants with cancer had fewer hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease in their brains as well as a reduced likelihood of neurodegenerative symptoms during their lifetimes, lead study author Erin Abner, a University of Kentucky epidemiologist and aging researcher and her team were able to offer the clearest picture yet of a molecular mechanism that seems to link the two diseases.
“The connection is becoming more and more apparent,” New York University cancer researcher Eva Hernando-Monge, who didn’t work on the study, tells ...
