Essential Nutrient May Help Fight Alzheimer's Across Generations

A study published in Molecular Psychiatry explored how the nutrient choline could be used to combat Alzheimer's, reports Medical Xpress . When fed high concentrations of choline, mice engineered to exhibit Alzheimer's-like symptoms bore offspring with better spatial memory, compared to those receiving a normal choline regimen in utero. Analysis of mouse tissue extracted from the hippocampus verified the epigenetic modifications caused by choline supplementation. "We found that early choline supplementation decreased homocysteine while increasing methionine, suggesting that high choline levels convert homocysteine to methionine," says Arizona State University's Ramon Velazquez. "This conversion happens thanks to an enzyme known as betaine-homocysteine methyltransferase (BMHT). We found that choline supplementation increased the production of BMHT in 2 generations of mice." Choline supplementation also limits the activation of microglial cells that clear debris in the brain, which is typically excessive in Alzheimer's pathology.