Plaques And Tangles May Be A Symptom, Not The Cause Of Alzheimer's Disease, Rutgers University Study

Medical News Today -- Karl Herrup thinks that the national research effort to understand Alzheimer's disease has gone about as far as it can go with its current theories. And that's not far enough. Alzheimer's disease is an incurable, degenerative, eventually fatal disease that attacks cognitive function. It affects more than 26 million people around the world and is the most common form of dementia among people over the age of 65. Over the last three decades, most Alzheimer's research has been governed by the "amyloid cascade hypothesis." The theory - which holds that the beta-amyloid peptide is the key to the initiation and progression of the disease - has had significant appeal as the peptide is the main ingredient of the disease-related plaques that are common in the brains of those affected.