I was destined to have Alzheimer’s. The sauna freed him from illness for years

A 70-year-old American man was guaranteed that he would contract early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, due to his genetic inheritance. However, that’s not what happened.

Thanks to your inadvertent exposure to heat while working as a mechanic in ship engine rooms, Doug Whitney managed to escape the Alzheimer’s disease he was destined for.

As detailed by , the North American belongs to a family that carries a variant of a gene called presenilin 2inherited from ancestors whose origins date back to a German village.

Carriers of this mutation almost always develop Alzheimer’s disease in the future. late 40s or early 50s.

Despite having inherited the same mutation, Whitney reached the age of 70 without developing any serious memory problems or other symptoms of Alzheimer’s. To date, he is the only known carrier to escape the disease for many years after its predicted onset.

In a new one, published in March in The Journal of Alzheimer’s Diseaseresearchers found that placing rats in miniature saunas helped maintain brain structures. tau protein in good condition e increased its elimination of the brain.

Likewise, they found that the elimination of this protein was greater in healthy elderly people when they were awake than when they slept, possibly because body temperature is higher when people are awake.

Whitney worked for two decades in the hot engine rooms of ships, starting at age 18. These rooms can reach temperatures of 50 degrees Celsius, and sometimes Whitney remained in them for hours on end, occasionally having to be hosed down to prevent overheating.

“These high levels of thermal proteins may have prevented Whitney from developing Alzheimer’s disease by regulating the brain protein called tau,” explains the study’s first author, Geoffrey Canet.

Tau protein undergoes a anomalous splitting and aggregates into tangled clusters in people with the disease, which is associated with cognitive decline. Through imaging tests, it was possible to observe that Whitney’s brain contains little anomalous tau protein, which probably explains the absence of symptoms.

On the other hand, your brain contains misfolded amyloid protein, something also characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease, but it seems to be less likely to develop symptoms.

Interestingly, the regions of the world with the lowest rates of cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease in people over 60 tend to be very hot. On the other hand, the Cold exposure may increase the risk of this disease.

Additionally, scientists have also found that general anesthesia, which lowers body temperature, can cause short-term cognitive problems that resemble the disease, possibly due to its effect on tau protein.

It is also known that tau protein becomes deregulated in bears during winter hibernation. “The tau protein in the brains of bears appears pathological while they are in hibernation, but as soon as they wake up and warm up again, it somehow appears normal again,” says The Florey researcher, Rebecca Nisbet.

Although the studies bring a new perspective, caution is needed in future research. “We have to be careful in our studies with mice. If we anesthetize them for too long during treatments, this can cause tau protein dysregulation”, concludes Nisbet.