When you have Down syndrome, your wellbeing is at a greater risk to diabetes, as well as other health risks such as Alzheimer’s disease and autistic spectrum disorders, and a team of UC Irvine researchers may have the reason why.
Jorge Busciglio, associate professor of neurobiology and behaviour, and colleagues, have discovered some of the underlying neural factors that explain why people with Down syndrome are more susceptible to certain wellness complications. Pablo Helguera, Jaqueline Seiglie and Michael Hanna of UC Irvine; Jose Rodriguez of UCLA; and Gustavo Helguera of Argentina’s University of Buenos Aires also contributed to the study, which was published in Cell Metabolism and supported by the Larry L. Hillblom Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
For the study, they examined the cellular and molecular mechanisms which lead to oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction in Down syndrome individuals, and found that it was this breakdown in energy metabolism within brain cells that potentially causes the higher probability of these other conditions in Down syndrome patients.
Having Down syndrome means you have an extra chromosome than the usual 46. It is estimated, for example, that over 25% of individuals over 35 with Down syndrome show signs of Alzheimer’s-type dementia, a percentage that increases with age, and the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease in people with Down syndrome is roughly three to five times greater than in the general population.
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