It is common knowledge that our mental abilities decline as we age, but a recent study is about to change that age-old thinking. Recently, scientists found a potential gene expression that could be the key to curtailing failing memory.
Ironic as it may seem, the gene expression responsible for long life can also generate a protein that could improve older people's cognitive function significantly.
Called the KLOTHO gene, its variant KL-VS is known to trim down age-related heart diseases and stroke by producing klotho, a protein aptly named after the Greek mythological goddess of fate in charge of spinning the thread of life.
Since klotho can prolong life, a team of researchers from the Gladstone Institutes and University of California in San Francisco tried to find out if the protein can also improve cognitive abilities.
"Based on what was known about klotho, we expected it to affect the brain by changing the aging process," said senior author and neurology professor Lennart Mucke M.D., who also directs neurological research at the Gladstone Institutes. "But this is not what we found, which suggested to us that we were on to something new and different."
It took a grueling three years for the researchers to come to a conclusion. In three separate studies, they first had to test if the presence of KL-VS variant, or allele, is relative to age-related human cognition involving over 700 people aged 52 to 85 and one in five of them had the KLOTHO gene.
After that, they had to solidify their findings with "genetic, electrophysiological, biochemical and behavioral experiments" in mice.
What the researchers found out were unexpected. Instead of determining a way on how to curb mental decline, the team learned that klotho can actually help people get smarter, in fact, by about six IQ points.
Moreover, while those who had one KLOTHO gene live longer and are less likely to have stroke, those who have two copies experienced the reverse; hence, striking out the assumption that having more than one KLOTHO gene expression is better.
The study, which is now published in the journal Cell Reports, could be a stepping stone in developing drugs that could enhance one's memory regardless of age, sex and even if the person has a family history of Alzheimer's, simply by increasing klotho production.
It could be one of the many studies that could cut back the number of growing cases of dementia worldwide. According to Alzheimer's Disease International, in 2013, around 44.4 million people have dementia, and this number is expected to increase to 75.6 million come 2030 and almost double the number in 2050.
