Anesthesia or hypothermia: Warning for Alzheimer's patients

Everyone knows that its important to keep a cool head, but a new study published online in The FASEB Journal shows that for Alzheimer's patients, a cool head may make the disease worse. In the research report, scientists show that a protein associated with Alzheimer's (called "tau") builds up in brain cells at an increased rate when temperatures fall, such as when a patient is anesthetized or experiences hypothermia. This finding should be of immediate concern to surgeons, dentists, and any other health care professionals who anesthetize patients with Alzheimer's or patients at an elevated risk for the disease.

Read the whole article on Physorg

More from Physorg