{"id":5608,"date":"2008-01-09T17:43:23","date_gmt":"2008-01-09T17:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/?p=5608"},"modified":"2008-01-09T17:43:23","modified_gmt":"2008-01-09T17:43:23","slug":"new-study-makes-strong-case-for-link-between-childhood-lead-exposure-alzheimers-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/2008\/01\/09\/new-study-makes-strong-case-for-link-between-childhood-lead-exposure-alzheimers-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"New study makes strong case for link between childhood lead exposure, Alzheimer\u2019s disease"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This image shows an Alzheimer’s-like plaque in one of the monkey’s brain tissue. URI Department of Communications & Marketing photos by Michael Salerno Photography.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

URI Pharmacy professor discovers enhanced Alzheimer\u2019s plaques in monkey tissue<\/h3>\n

KINGSTON, R.I. — January 9, 2008 \u2013 A University of Rhode Island pharmacy professor has found for the first time evidence of Alzheimer\u2019s-like disease in monkeys that were exposed to lead as infants.
\nNasser Zawia<\/a>, a URI professor of biomedical sciences at the College of Pharmacy led the three-year study, which involved four institutions. The findings were published in January\u2019s issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.
\n\u201cThis is the first evidence of promotion of Alzheimer\u2019s disease-like pathology in a primate by an environmental agent,\u201d Zawia said. \u201cIt is relevant because monkeys have identical genes to humans.\u201d
\nIn a study begun in 1980, a group of monkeys was given infant formula with low levels of lead for 400 days. A control group was given formula with no lead. No health problems were found in any of the monkeys during the 23-year study. The low level of lead given to one group of monkeys was designed to mimic what children would be exposed to in their environment. By the time of Zawia\u2019s study, there were no detectable levels of lead in the monkey tissue from the group exposed to the toxin.
\n\"\"In his research, Zawia and his research team discovered Alzheimer\u2019s related genes as well as amyloid plaques associated with the illness in the tissue from the monkeys given lead. These plaques, or protein fragments, would be typically broken down and eliminated, but Alzheimer\u2019s produces hard, insoluble plaques.
\nWhile the hazards of lead exposure in children have been well publicized, Zawia\u2019s latest work \u201cprovides further proof for a development origin and environmental link for Alzheimer\u2019s disease.\u201d
\nHe said senile plaques were found in all of the adult monkeys, but the ones exposed to lead as infants were more dense and numerous.
\nThe research follows earlier studies by Zawia that demonstrated links between infant exposure to lead and precursors to Alzheimer\u2019s in rats and mice. \u201cWe found that when they became adults, the rats\u2019 and mice genes mimicked what happens to genes in humans affected by Alzheimer\u2019s.
\n\u201cBut the problem was, rats don\u2019t develop brain plaques as people do when they are afflicted with Alzheimer\u2019s,\u201d Zawia said.
\nThrough Zawia\u2019s contacts at the National Institutes of Health, he became aware of a study that had been done by Deborah C. Rice, now a toxicologist at the Maine Environmental Protection Agency, on behavioral and cognitive effects on monkeys given low levels of lead in infant formula. She examined the monkeys from infancy to adulthood.
\n\u201cDr. Jean Harry, a mentor of mine at NIH, told me about the availability of adult monkey tissue. This was all very serendipitous. I didn\u2019t know Dr. Rice and wasn\u2019t aware of her ongoing study,\u201d Zawia said.
\nIn all, Zawia has been studying the introduction of lead to young mammals and its effects on adult animals for the past eight years. This work has attracted about $700,000 in grants from the National Institutes of Health.
\n\u201cWe were the first to establish a link between developmental lead exposure and Alzheimer\u2019s disease-like pathogenesis. This work took over five years from experiment to publication. Here we provide further proof that is relevant to humans in an animal model that has identical gene sequences and pathologic outcome.
\n\u201cWe believe at some critical developmental window, lead exposure has intervened with control of genes and thus changes the destiny of gene expression in old age,\u201d Zawia said.
\nMedia Contact: Dave Lavallee<\/a>, 401-874-5862<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

URI Pharmacy professor discovers enhanced Alzheimer\u2019s plaques in monkey tissue KINGSTON, R.I. — January 9, 2008 \u2013 A University of Rhode Island pharmacy professor has found for the first time evidence of Alzheimer\u2019s-like disease in monkeys that were exposed to lead as infants. Nasser Zawia, a URI professor of biomedical sciences at the College of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":639,"featured_media":5609,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[161,206,35,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-bps","category-news-people-zawia","category-news","category-news-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/639"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}