Natural Plant Compound Prevents Alzheimer’s Disease In Mice_Living Beyond 100

Living Beyond 100's Podcast

A daily dose of the antioxidant fisetin keeps mice—even those with genetic mutations linked to Alzheimer’s—from experiencing memory and learning deficits as they age. We had already shown that in normal animals, fisetin can improve memory,” says Pamela Maher, a senior staff scientis in Salk’s Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory who led the new study. “What we showed here is that it also can have an effect on animals prone to Alzheimer’s.” More than a decade ago, Maher discovered that fisetin helps protect neurons in the brain from the effects of aging. She and her colleagues have since—in both isolated cell cultures and mouse studies—probed how the compound has both antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects on cells in the brain. Most recently, they found that fisetin turns on a cellular pathway known to be involved in memory.