{"id":232641,"date":"2026-03-05T22:15:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T04:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/alzheimers-may-start-with-inflammation-in-the-skin-lungs-or-gut"},"modified":"2026-03-05T22:15:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T04:15:25","slug":"alzheimers-may-start-with-inflammation-in-the-skin-lungs-or-gut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/alzheimers-may-start-with-inflammation-in-the-skin-lungs-or-gut","title":{"rendered":"Alzheimer\u2019s may start with inflammation in the skin, lungs or gut"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Alzheimer\u2019s disease has long been viewed as something that originates inside the brain, but an in-depth genomic analysis suggests it may initially triggered by inflammation in distant organs like the skin, lungs or gut \u2013 perhaps decades before a person\u2019s memory starts to decline.<\/p>\n

This radical reframing of the disease may explain why Alzheimer\u2019s drugs have been disappointing to date, because they act too late in the disease process. Instead, we may need to redirect our efforts towards addressing inflammation in other parts of the body.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs neuroscientists, we tend to be very brain-centric, but this study really shines a spotlight on the fact that the brain is not disconnected from the rest of the body, and when changes happen in the rest of the body, it affects how the brain functions,\u201d says Donna Wilcock at Indiana University, who wasn\u2019t involved in the research. \u201cEven though Alzheimer\u2019s is a brain disease, we need to think about the whole body when we think about how it begins.\u201d<\/p>\n

Image: Alamy<\/p>\n

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The Alzheimer\u2019s field is being turned on its head as mounting evidence points to the disease beginning outside the brain many years before symptoms start. This may mean we have to totally rethink how we approach preventing and treating the condition.<\/p>\n

By Alice Klein<\/a><\/p>\n

Continue reading \u201cAlzheimer\u2019s may start with inflammation in the skin, lungs or gut\u201d | ><\/a><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alzheimer\u2019s disease has long been viewed as something that originates inside the brain, but an in-depth genomic analysis suggests it may initially triggered by inflammation in distant organs like the skin, lungs or gut \u2013 perhaps decades before a person\u2019s memory starts to decline. This radical reframing of the disease may explain why Alzheimer\u2019s drugs [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-232641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}