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MEDTECH Clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP) occurs when blood stem cells acquire mutations enabling their survival and multiplication, often comprising 4%-30% of blood and immune cells.
New research from Stanford Medicine presents a fascinating discovery: a common blood condition known as CHIP may offer a protective effect against Alzheimer’s disease, opening a new frontier in the understanding of neurodegenerative disorders.
Key Points:
- People with CHIP are typically more prone to various diseases including coronary heart disease, chronic liver disease, and blood cancers.
- Recent studies show that individuals with CHIP have a 30%-50% lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease compared to those without the CHIP mutation.
Additional Points:
- The level of Alzheimer’s protection in CHIP carriers is comparable to carrying an APOE ε2 allele, a known genetic variant that decreases Alzheimer’s risk.
- In people with CHIP, between 30% and 90% of brain microglia, cells crucial in combating brain inflammation and toxin buildup, harbor CHIP mutations.
- Brain samples of individuals with CHIP showed lower levels of neurofibrillary tangles and amyloid plaques, both associated with Alzheimer’s.
Conclusion:
- Further research is required to understand how mutated microglia might be protecting against Alzheimer’s and the implications for future Alzheimer’s therapeutics.
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“We thought there might be some kind of survivor bias—that people with CHIP were more likely to die before developing Alzheimer’s disease—but the decrease in risk still held after adjusting for that.”
Siddhartha Jaiswal, MD, Ph.D
Assistant Professor of Pathology
Stanford Medicine
