Fisetin Studies Related to Brain Aging
One of Maher’s studies in 2014 focused on memory loss in mice due to familial Alzheimer’s, which is a type that accounts for only 3 percent of cases. The newest study examined possible fisetin advantages on sporadic Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type associated with age. Scientists used mice that had been “genetically engineered to age prematurely, resulting in a mouse model of sporadic Alzheimer’s disease,” Medical News Today said:
“When the prematurely aging mice were 3 months old, they were divided into two groups. One group was fed a dose of fisetin with their food every day for 7 months, until they reached the age of 10 months. The other group did not receive the compound.
The team explains that at 10 months of age, the physical and cognitive states of the mice were the equivalent to those of 2-year-old mice. All rodents were subject to cognitive and behavioral tests throughout the study, and the researchers also assessed the mice for levels of markers linked to stress and inflammation.”
Assessment then revealed that the 10-month-old mice not given fisetin had more markers linked to stress and inflammation, and performed “significantly worse” in cognitive testing than those given fisetin. Maher termed the differences “striking.” More specifically, two neurons, astrocytes and microglia, usually considered anti-inflammatory, were actually promoting inflammation in the brains of the no-fisetin mice.
Those dosed with the compound were reported as having the behavior and cognitive function of 3-month-old mice — their actual age. Alzheimer’s Prevention noted fisetin halted memory loss in mice typically prone to Alzheimer’s within a year of their birth. Maher and company noted that while mice aren’t people, there were enough similarities indicating fisetin’s potential as a preventative, not just for Alzheimer’s, but many age-related cognitive diseases, that they encouraged further rigorous studies.
