Researchers have discovered that patients suffering from two particular types of dementia have higher levels of zinc and iron in their brains.
The study by Michigan State University showed that people with Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease had more of the two minerals their brains than healthy patients.
Zinc is a trace element – meaning it is only present in the body in very small amounts – essential for regulating the immune system.
Similarly, iron is an essential mineral, found in foods like spinach, that enables enough oxygen to be distributed around the body.
The researchers also found that people with pancreatic cancer had unusually high amounts of a specific zinc transporter.
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This controls how zinc is accumulated and used by cells in the body.
Researchers believe that controlling levels of these minerals in all three conditions could help treat them.
Zinc is the second most common trace element after iron.
Researchers believe that by looking at how the body maintains proper levels of zinc and iron, and seeing what happens when this goes wrong, can help them understand the importance of a particular family of transporters.
They looked at a ZIP zinc transporter from the ZIP family, which is made up of thousands of metal transporters.
The human genome – which is the genetic information in an organism – encodes 14 ZIPs.
Many of them are associated with particular diseases.
For example, Acrodermatitis Enteropathica is a rare and lethal disorder caused by zinc deficiency.
Scientists believe the discovery provides a new target for testing drugs.
“In the long run, we hope our study will contribute to the discovery of the ZIP inhibitors for pancreatic cancer and other devastating diseases,” said Jian Hu, a study author and biochemist at Michigan State University.
There is no suggestion that people should alter their eating habits to consume less zinc and iron.