Researchers at the University of Texas at El Paso, in the United States (USA), believe they have found a way to prevent neurodegenerative diseases in used coffee grounds – a material that is discarded daily from homes and businesses around the world.
Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's , Parkinson's disease , and Huntington's disease affect millions of people worldwide, and the cost of caring for people living with these diseases reaches hundreds of billions of dollars every year.
A team led by Jyotish Kumar, a PhD student in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and supervised by Mahesh Narayan, professor in the same department and member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, discovered high potential in the caffeic acid-based substance.
Carbon quantum dots (CACQDs), which can be derived from used coffee grounds, have the potential to protect brain cells from damage caused by several neurodegenerative diseases – if the condition is triggered by factors such as obesity, age and exposure to pesticides and other toxic environmental chemicals.
Kumar describes in his paper, published in the November issue of the journal Environmental Research , that caffeic acid-based carbon quantum dots have the potential to be transformative in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.
“This is because none of the current treatments resolve the diseases; they just help control symptoms. Our goal is to find a cure by addressing the atomic and molecular bases that drive these conditions,” he says.
Neurodegenerative diseases are mainly characterized by the loss of neurons or brain cells. They inhibit a person's ability to perform basic functions, such as movement and speech, as well as more complicated tasks, including bladder and bowel functions, and cognitive abilities.
Prevention in the early stages
When disorders are in their early stages and are caused by lifestyle or environmental factors, they share several characteristics, such as elevated levels of free radicals in the brain, and the aggregation of amyloid-forming protein fragments, which can lead to plaques or fibrils in the brain. .
Research found that CACQDs were neuroprotective in test-tube experiments, cell lines, and other models of Parkinson's disease when the disorder was caused by a pesticide.
CACQDs, the team noted, were able to scavenge free radicals or prevent them from causing damage and inhibited the aggregation of amyloid protein fragments without causing any significant side effects.
The team hypothesizes that in humans, in the early phase of a disease such as Alzheimer's disease or Parkinson's disease, a treatment based on CACQDs may be effective in preventing full-blown disease.
Mahesh Narayan emphasizes that it is essential to address these disorders before they reach the clinical stage.
“At that point, it will probably be too late. Any current treatments that can treat advanced symptoms of neurodegenerative diseases are simply beyond the means of most people. Our goal is to find a solution that can prevent the majority of cases of these conditions at a cost that is manageable for as many patients as possible,” he explains in a statement.
The researchers will now seek additional funding to support further testing and advance the studies of this thesis.
Iasmin Paiva from CNN
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