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Cancer Stops Alzheimer’s: Here’s WhyBy Lynn C. Allison Could cancer offer the cure for Alzheimer’s? Possibly, a recently released study finds. After doctors noticed that cancer and Alzheimer’s are rarely found in the same patients, they set to find out why. Brain Doctor: 7 Signs of Alzheimer’s You Must Know, See Them Scientists sought to learn if one disease may offer some protection against the other. Now, scientists in China say they have identified an explanation. A new study suggests that a specific protein released by cancer cells is able to cross the blood-brain barrier and interfere with the abnormal protein buildup associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers found that this protein can break up amyloid plaques — a hallmark of Alzheimer’s — offering new insight into the complex relationship between cancer and neurodegenerative disorders. The study, published in Cell, found that proteins from cancer cells were able to cross the blood-brain barrier in mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease. When researchers at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, injected these mice with three types of human cancer tumors — lung, prostate, and colon — the animals did not develop the characteristic plaques associated with Alzheimer’s. Urgent: 5 Signs You’ll Get Cancer and How to Stop It! Read More Here! The scientists then narrowed down the list of candidate proteins to one called cystatin C. In additional experiments, they found that cystatin C can bind to the molecules that form brain plaques. This process appears to send signals to a protein called TREM2 found on immune cells in the brain, which then prompts those immune cells to degrade the plaques. Study author Youming Lu, a neurologist, reported that the mice performed better on cognitive tests after the intervention. Heart Attack Risk: Find Out Your Risk in Just Minutes Online, Go Here Now. Dr. Donald Weaver, a neurologist at the University of Toronto, said the findings provide an interesting “piece of the puzzle” in developing new therapies to treat Alzheimer’s disease. Identifying a protein that can activate TREM2 is especially valuable, he said, because scientists have been looking for ways to trigger that process for years. If human clinical trials produce similar results, the research could point toward new approaches for treating Alzheimer’s disease, which affects an estimated 7.2 million people in the U.S. Still, Weaver argued that “it’s going to take a cocktail of drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease. There’s not going to be a magic bullet.” Special: It's Not Keto . . . Your Liver Is Causing Obesity © 2026 NewsmaxHealth. All rights reserved. Lynn C. Allison, a Newsmax Health reporter, is an award-winning medical journalist and author of more than 30 self-help books. Related Articles:
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