Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia in older adults, and affects as many as 5.1 million Americans. In Alzheimer’s disease, a protein fragment called beta-amyloid accumulates at abnormally high levels in the brain. In the the most common type of Alzheimer’s disease, late-onset Alzheimer’s, symptoms usually appear after age 65.

Now researchers have found that in late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, beta-amyloid is produced in the brain at a normal rate but is not cleared, or removed from the brain, efficiently. [Read more…]