In the race to gain a better understanding of the drivers behind Alzheimer’s disease, one research team looks to the link between the brain, the gut, and the liver.

Share on Pinterest To understand Alzheimer’s, we must also look to organs other than the brain, a new study urges.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, affecting approximately 50 million people worldwide.

Currently, there is no way of reversing the condition, and treatments focus on symptom management. This necessity is largely because researchers still do not know what exactly causes Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia.

Now, investigators from the Alzheimer’s Disease Metabolomics Consortium (ADMC) at Duke University in Durham, NC, and the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) have begun collaborating, looking for clues about Alzheimer’s in a seemingly unlikely place: the liver.

The researchers decided to start taking liver function into account — in the context of Alzheimer’s disease — because of the organ’s role in the body’s metabolic processes.

In their new study paper, which appears in JAMA Network Open, the authors explain that, recently, specialists have increasingly begun to acknowledge a strong association between Alzheimer’s disease and various forms of metabolic dysfunction.

“Metabolic activities in the liver determine the state of the metabolic readout of peripheral circulation,” the authors explain in the study paper.

“Mounting evidence suggests that patients with Alzheimer disease display metabolic dysfunction,” they continue, adding that the “evidence highlights the importance of the liver in the pathophysiological characteristics of [Alzheimer’s disease].”