Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered that an immune-modifying protein that damages so-called "brain connections" is more common in the brains of females with this disease than in men.

In a report published in the Spanish newspaper "Confidential", writer Fran Sanchez said that Stuart Lipton, a specialist in molecular medicine, stated that "the reason for women's susceptibility to Alzheimer's disease more than men has long been a mystery."

Lipton believes that the results of the new study - which he conducted with a group of researchers - reveal an important part of the puzzle that mechanically explains the increasing vulnerability of women as they age.

This study highlighted the evaluation of the condition of patients of both sexes before and after Alzheimer's disease.

The team of researchers concluded evidence for a partial cause of Alzheimer's disease, evidence that may also explain why women are at greater risk of developing the disease compared to men.

This neurodegenerative disease affects about 800,000 people in Spain, according to estimates from the Spanish Neurological Society.

According to the author, the research group discovered in the study - which was published in the journal "Science Advances" - that a chemical modifier of an inflammatory immune protein called "complement C3" was present at much higher levels in the brains of dead women compared to men who also died because of it, and a team showed The research also shows that estrogen, whose production decreases during menopause, usually protects against the formation of this form of C3 supplement.

And the author quoted Dr. Lipton as saying, "The results of the new study indicate that chemical modification of a component of the complement system helps cause Alzheimer's disease, and may explain - at least in part - why the disease affects mostly women."

The reason why women are more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease than men has long been a mystery (Getty Images)

A study of 40 human brains

The writer explained that Lipton's lab studies biochemical and molecular events that may underlie neurodegenerative diseases, such as a chemical reaction that forms a modified type of "complement C3", a process called "S-nitrosylation".

Indeed, protein modifications by small groups of atoms, such as the nobelium, are common in cells, and often turn the functions of the target protein on or off.

For technical reasons, the research team felt that studying S-nitrosyl was more difficult than studying other protein modifications, but Lipton suspects that the SNOs of these proteins could be a major factor in Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.

For the new study, the researchers used new methods to detect the “S-nitrosyl” compound to quantify the modified proteins in 40 human brains after death, and found that half of the brains were from people who had died from Alzheimer’s disease and the other half were from people who were still alive. equally between men and women.

Scientists found 1,449 different types of proteins in these brains, and perhaps many of the proteins repeatedly modified in this way are already linked to Alzheimer's disease, such as complement C3.

The levels of complement C3 and S-nitrosyl were six times higher in the brains of females with neurodegenerative disease than in the brains of males with Alzheimer's disease.

The author stated that the human complement system consists of a group of proteins, including "C3", which can activate each other to cause inflammation, which is known as the "complementary cascade";

Scientists have known for more than 30 years that the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease have higher levels of complement proteins and other markers of inflammation than neurologically normal brains.