Featured Review Cellscience Reviews Vol 4 No 2 ISSN 1742-8130

Anesthesia, Amyloid and Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer disease (AD) and related neurodegenerative conditions represent an increasing health problem. Research suggests that the onset of AD is triggered by multiple factors and is associated with a slow pathogenesis. Although many significant advances have been made in establishing the cellular factors contributing to AD, of equal importance, but largely neglected, are environmental influences which modulate the rate of AD or dementia pathogenesis. The existence of beneficial environmental and dietary influences is widely accepted, although detrimental ones are also likely exist, some of which have already been identified. TCE was once a widely used inhalational anesthetic, and many millions of people were at one time exposed to this chemical at levels much higher than current industrial limits allow. This review addresses recent evidence that inhalational anesthetics may in fact contribute to the onset and pathogenesis of AD. Is it a coincidence that Dr. Alzheimer described his first patient in 1907, a time when inhalational general anesthesia had been in wide-spread use for only a few decades?

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