A 19-year-old man from China, who has been having memory problems since the age of 17, was diagnosed with dementia, according to a recent case study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.
After conducting a barrage of tests, researchers at the Capital Medical University in Beijing diagnosed the teenager with “probable” Alzheimer’s disease. If the diagnosis is correct, he will be the youngest person ever to be recorded with the mind-robbing disease.
The main risk factor for the disease is getting old, which makes this latest case so unusual.
The exact causes of Alzheimer’s are still largely unknown, but a classical feature of the disease is the build-up of two proteins in the brain: Beta-amyloid and tau. In people with Alzheimer’s, beta-amyloid is usually found in large quantities outside of neurons (brain cells), and tau “tangles” are found inside axons, the long, slender projection of neurons….