We Should Apply a “One Health” Approach to Understand and Treat Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

Despite many decades of researches and large numbers of clinical trials, there remain no effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, a major degenerative ageing brain disorder. The potential treatments have focused on targeting the accumulation of amyloid beta-peptide in the brains of patients, but without success in slowing the disease. Many studies have now identified a large range of pathological changes (i.e. altered immune activity, mitochondrial impairment, abnormal microbiome), and links to the external environment (i.e. associations with infections, the influence of air pollution). While the concept of One Health (which considers links between the environment and human disease) has traditionally been applied to the understanding of the human infectious disease, it is argued here that the One Health approach should be adopted for Alzheimer’s disease. This would provide a far more holistic understanding of the disease, and its relationship to a growing number of exogenous factors, as well as could potentially lead to new treatment options targeted at the confluence of external influences, and internal molecular pathways.