Functional Foods: An Approach to Modulate Molecular Mechanisms of Alzheimer's Disease

Abstract

A new epoch is emerging with intense research on nutraceuticals, i.e., "food or food product that provides medical or health benefits including the prevention and treatment of diseases", such as Alzheimer's disease. Nutraceuticals act at different biochemical and metabolic levels and much evidence shows their neuroprotective effects; in particular, they are able to provide protection against mitochondrial damage, oxidative stress, toxicity of β-amyloid and Tau and cell death. They have been shown to influence the composition of the intestinal microbiota significantly contributing to the discovery that differential microorganisms composition is associated with the formation and aggregation of cerebral toxic proteins. Further, the routes of interaction between epigenetic mechanisms and the microbiota-gut-brain axis have been elucidated, thus establishing a modulatory role of diet-induced epigenetic changes of gut microbiota in shaping the brain. This review examines recent scientific literature addressing the beneficial effects of some natural products for which mechanistic evidence to prevent or slowdown AD are available. Even if the road is still long, the results are already exceptional.

Keywords: Alzheimer; brain; cell death; diet; epigenetics; gut microbiota; health; nutraceuticals.

Figure 1

The main and substantial differences between nutraceuticals and food supplements.

Figure 2

Major events, namely oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction, toxicity and aggregation of Aβ and tau, neuronal damage and apoptosis, memory loss and cognitive decline, characterizing the onset and progression of AD until death.

Figure 3

Resveratrol and Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease is a complex neurodegenerative disorder with multiple contributing factors. Some of the pathways affected by Resveratrol are here indicated.

Figure 4

The picture describes that the Mediterranean diet, the richest diet in beneficial and highly nutraceutical substances in the world, may create putative links with microbiota and epigenetic mechanisms by modifying gut microbiota composition; thus, helping us to preserve our mental health, i.e., improve memory, cognitive functions, intelligence and sharpness, avoiding the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.