A Dozen Dolphins Have Beached Themselves, Showing The Deadly Hallmark of Alzheimer’s
Over a dozen dolphins, stranded on the beaches of Florida and Massachusetts, have been found with brains full of amyloid plaques, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.
The scientists who made the discovery think it may be a warning to us all: alongside the Alzheimer’s-like plaques, the team also found the environmental toxin BMAA.
Over a dozen dolphins, stranded on the beaches of Florida and Massachusetts, have been found with brains full of amyloid plaques, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.
The scientists who made the discovery think it may be a warning to us all: alongside the Alzheimer’s-like plaques, the team also found the environmental toxin BMAA.
“Acute and chronic exposures to such toxins can be harmful to both humans and animals resulting in respiratory illnesses, severe dermatitis, mucosal damage, cancer, organ failure and death,” the authors write.
As the world warms at a rapid rate, these HABs are only becoming more frequent, and the authors worry that dolphins will accumulate even more BMAA as a result, “both by exposure to HABs and by the ingestion of prey previously exposed to the cyanotoxin”.
As such, these creatures may very well be our first indication of poor environmental conditions, and while it’s still not clear if these blooms directly lead to Alzheimer’s in dolphins or in humans, the researchers say it’s a risk we shouldn’t be willing to take.
“The $64,000 question is whether these marine mammals experienced cognitive deficits and disorientation that led to their beaching,” says co-author Paul Alan Cox, an ethnobotanist at the Brain Chemistry Labs in Jackson Hole.
“Until further research clarifies this question, people should take simple steps to avoid cyanobacterial exposure.”
Source:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0213346