Age is considered to be the greatest risk of Alzheimer's disease. But the special form of dementia can also occur at a young age. The preliminary diagnosis of a 19-year-old man in China shows an exceptionally early Alzheimer's disease. Doctors cannot explain this.

In a case report, researchers from Capital Medical University in Beijing reported a 19-year-old patient who is likely to have Alzheimer's. This would make him the youngest Alzheimer's patient in the world, which was diagnosed with this neurodegenerative disease. So far, a 21-year-old man was the youngest Alzheimer's patient. In 2021, researchers from Spain reported on his case.

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In principle, the risk of Alzheimer's increases in adulthood with each year of life. But there are exceptions. About two to four percent of all people are of dementia, which includes Alzheimer's disease, before the 65th disease. affected year. If the disease is detected in young people, it is in most cases due to genetic causes. This is also the case with the 21-year-old in Spain. However, neither such a genetic cause nor other diseases nor injuries could be identified in the 19-year-old in China as the cause of its symptoms. According to the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, the researchers cannot explain their own statements as to why such an early illness occurred. You are facing a real medical puzzle.

First failures already at 17 years

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Already at the age of 17 the young man in China had used the first memory and concentration problems, reports metro.uk.co. He was therefore unable to concentrate on his training at school. A year later, he gradually lost his short-term memory. He could no longer remember whether he had eaten or done his homework. The cognitive impairments eventually became so severe that he had to stop his education shortly before his graduation.

The man was examined several times in hospitals in search of the cause of his considerable limitations. Even his entire genome was sequenced and viewed. The researchers did not see anything about known mutations that could be associated with Alzheimer's disease. Even within the teenager's family, nobody has been ill with Alzheimer's or dementia.

It was only through the standard tests for the detection of memory loss that the treating doctors came to the result Alzheimer's. The MRI images taken by the young man's brain also showed the signs typical of dementia. For example, the hippocampus, a part of the brain that is predominantly responsible for memory, had shrunk. Likewise, increased concentrations of certain tau proteins have been detected in the man's cerebral water, which have been associated with dementia for a long time. The so-called beta-amyloid relationship, which is used for Alzheimer's diagnosis, was also noticeable in the man.

Since a brain biopsy is associated with too many risks for the patient, the physicians had to do without it. You therefore still do not know what exactly has been the cause of the very early Alzheimer's disease of the man and therefore also remain with the designation of a "probable" Alzheimer diagnosis.

(This article was released on Monday, 27. February 2023 first published.)