WESTON, Fla. – A new study is revealing a possible reason why women are at higher risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease than men.
Dr. Damon Salzman, a neurologist with Cleveland Clinic Weston, said researchers found much higher levels of a chemically modified version of a specific protein in the brains of women who died from Alzheimer’s compared to men.
“And this particular protein, the C3 protein -- a form of the complement protein, which is involved in the immune response -- seems to be responsible for an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease,” he said.
Salzman said the researchers believe the drop in estrogen caused by menopause may leave women more vulnerable to this version of complement C3.
Also in today’s health news, COVID-19 is once again showing signs of a winter surge.
One in five Americans now live in a county the CDC considers to have a high community level of COVID-19, but only about 15 percent of those eligible for an updated booster have gotten it and about 20 percent of people in the U.S. are completely unvaccinated against COVID-19.
“People who have gotten that updated bivalent booster, all the evidence so far suggests that they’re still protected against even this XBB.1.5,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID Response Coordinator.
It’s not yet clear whether XBB.1.5 causes more severe disease than some recent subvariants or whether waning immunity is leaving people less protected from COVID-19 infections.