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Boosting blood flow may fight Alzheimer's

CHICAGO, Dec. 24 (UPI) -- Improving blood flow to the brain appears key to delaying or preventing some forms of Alzheimer's, says Chicago's Feinberg School of Medicine.

Depriving the brain of sugar glucose carried in the blood appears to trigger a biochemical process that can cause Alzheimer's disease, Feinberg announced Wednesday.

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The brain begins to starve as people age, said Robert Vassar, the study's lead author, noting a simple preventative strategy would be to exercise more while managing cholesterol and hypertension.

"If people start early enough, maybe they can dodge the bullet," Vassar said, noting vasodilators, which increase blood flow, could help those who already have symptoms of the disease.

Depriving the brain of glucose increases production of an enzyme that produce the sticky protein clumps found in Alzheimer's, said Vassar, whose findings are to be published in the Dec. 26 issue of the journal Neuron.

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