Aging, Alzheimer's Disease and Protein Crosslinking

Abstract

A hypothesis is presented that certain diseases like Alzheimer's dementia may be a result of disturbances in crosslinking of body fluids and cytoplasmic proteins. These disturbances in turn may be caused by a change, probably a decrease, of the fluid pH. Dropping of pH may be a result of different organismal and environmental factors such as trauma, a genetic defect, a slow virus infection, a toxin, a deficiency of calcium and/or magnesium, or hypoventilation. The influence of acidosis caused by a hypoventilation may be a main cause of diseases due to normal aging processes. The fact that living systems operate in a state far from thermodynamic equilibrium and are probably critically crosslinked makes them especially sensitive to even minor changes of some parameters, namely changes that act as information interactions. The hypothesis may indicate new lines of research as well as new lines of thinking about implications of some environmental factors such as of weak electromagnetic fields.