Easter Island may hold the key to curing Alzheimer’s

There is no cure or proven treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, a debilitating form of dementia that cause challenges with memory, thought processes, and behavior. Clinical trials on humans are expected to start soon for treatment through rapamycin, an immunosuppressant drug that is a product of the bacterium Streptomyces hygroscopicus found in the soil on Easter Island. Its effects on the cognitive functions in mice have been very positive.

“We made the young ones learn, and remember what they learned, better than what is normal,” said Dr. Veronica Galvin from the Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies at the University of Texas. “Among the older mice, the ones fed with a diet including rapamycin actually showed an improvement, negating the normal decline that you see in these functions with age.”

SourceFed breaks it all down for us in their latest video: