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Gum Disease & Alzheimer’s: A Surprising Connection
By Shlomo Maital
A study led by Prof. Gabriel Nussbaum, Faculty of Dental Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, reveals a curious connection between gum disease and Alzheimer’s. It is reported by the daily Jerusalem Post.
Here is the story.
Porphyromonas gingivalis, the microbe that causes gum disease (e.g. gingivitis) is a germ that thrives in inflamed oral tissue in our mouths. Unlike most microbes, that thrive on sugars, it lives on proteins and on the iron in red blood cells. It feeds on the plaque and on the bleeding gums that arise when our gums are infected and ailing. Bleeding gums are like lunch or supper for it.
This insidious little bug has a magical trick. It uses a protein to fight the body’s immune system. The protein is called CD47. When the body has an infection, anywhere, e.g. our gums, it sends white blood cells to fight – part of our immune system. But this sneaky microbe, porphyromonas, has figured out how to defeat the white blood cells, and moreover, actually make them worsen the infection and gum bleeding, worsening the inflammation.
Sneaky! Gosh, what evolution can come up with!
But – what in the world does this have to do with Alzheimer’s?
Alzheimer’s is characterized by sticky plaque that gums up our brains and ultimately shuts it down. It seems likely that the microbes that infect our gums spread to our brains, and “drive macrophage cells into a pro-inflammation stage, generating plaque rather than preventing it.”
Macrophage cells are cells in our brain that comprise our active immune defense to protect our brains from microbes and other bad things. They make up fully 10% of the total number of cells in our brain. Makes sense — Evolution has evolved to protect our brains – but porphyromonas gingivalis may have figured out a defense against the defense.
What is the action item here? Seniors — healthy teeth and gums are really important for overall health. We’ve known this for ages. But now, we may see some real science that connects our gums and teeth with our brains.
Have your teeth cleaned regularly by a dental hygienist, so plaque doesn’t form and cause gingivitis. Maybe every six months or so. If your gums do bleed, see a periodontist. Your brain will say, thank you.
The Secret of Life: 3 Proteins
By Shlomo Maital
Have you ever wondered: How in the world do those little sperms – cells with big heads and wriggly tails – manage to get into the ovum, the female cell produced by the ovaries? Cells have thick walls. They have to – otherwise, really bad stuff could get int. COVID, for instance, gets into cells, because it has a huge long spike, a spear, and it pokes its way into the cell, and ‘persuades’ the cells in our body to produce copies of itself. But the little sperm? They have no spike.
But what DO they have? Writing in the New York Times, October 17, Elizabeth Preston explains clearly and movingly a new finding, that solves the mystery.[1]
A Google company, DeepMind, developed software, AlphaFold, whose principal developers shared the Nobel Prize this year for chemistry – a rare event in which the Nobel for science is given to a group of researchers from a business, rather than to scholars from a university or lab. Using AlphaFold, scientists at a research institute in Vienna have discovered the nature and structure of the three key proteins in the head of the sperm, that act as ‘keys’ to combine with a protein in the ovum cell wall and ‘unlock’ it, to enter, fertilize it – and generate a zygote, a fertilized ovum ready to reproduce. Proteins are driven by genes, and they control our lives. They have very complex ‘folded’ structures that are really hard to decipher — until now.
And – here’s the clincher. Those 3 proteins – they are shared by a huge variety of living things – humans, yes, and ….zebrafish. Those lovely striped black and white fish. Same 3 proteins on their testes (sex organs).
Does this make you think, that we humans are not really at the head of the food chain, but instead, PART of an amazing ecosystem with which we living things share many things, including those key (double meaning) proteins? Does this make you feel a bit humble, as it does me?
Picture that obstreperous sperm, outracing a million rivals, reaching the ovum, knocking politely on the door – no answer. Knocks again. No answer. Whips out the keys (3 proteins), turns the key in the lock, wriggles inside – and creates a new life, or the start of it. And then? Those two helixes of interlocked DNA, they separate, one stays, the other moves on to the divided cell… and the process continues.
There is incredible beauty in the creation of life – and those 3 proteins have unlocked only a very tiny part of it.
[1] Elizabeth Preston. “Sperm can’t unlock an egg without the ancient molecular key”. NYT Oct. 17.
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