Pathological role of hypoxia in Alzheimer's disease
Increasing evidence suggests that
hypoxia facilitates the
pathogenesis of AD through accelerating the accumulation of Aβ, increasing the
hyperphosphorylation of tau, impairing the normal functions of
blood–brain barrier, and promoting the degeneration of neurons.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014488609003057
However; the brain is exceptional at adapting to hypoxia through cellular remodeling and enhanced amyloidogenic processing of AβPP. In large part all the studies have shown that hypoxia may exacerbate onset of AD within those that have high susceptibility. No studies will show that hypoxia alone causes AD, it is generally a comorbidity onset by other cerebrovascular ischemic diseases. As the true nature or root cause of AD is not understood many still speculate that it is caused by environmental factors and genetic issues. For those that are not at risk of inevitable AD onset, the benefits of hypoxia are substantial. AD causes the brain to shrink and die, ischemia/hypoxia could be a side effect rather than an initial cause/trigger. It is another chicken and egg scenario.