"The research reveals that injury causes cells to overproduce a protein known as beta-secretase (BACE). The overabundance of this protein leads to the formation of the brain plaques associated with Alzheimer's, the researchers believe."

"Previous studies have found that people who have lost consciousness following a traumatic head injury are about 10 times as likely as their spouses to have Alzheimer's disease. Those who have suffered a blow to the head (such as a heavy punch in the face) without blacking out are roughly three times as likely to have the illness."

"Another study suggested that individuals who have had a stroke face a tripled risk of Alzheimer's compared with the general population."

"Inspired by this epidemiological evidence, Rudolph Tanzi at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, US, and colleagues set out to discover how these injuries trigger Alzheimer's disease."

"In the first part of their experiment they simulated the type of cell death that occurs in stroke by adding a chemical to brain cells in a dish."

"Within 12 hours about half the cells had "committed suicide", explains Giuseppina Tesco, who helped carry out the research. She also found that levels of BACE had rocketed. Specifically, the dying cells produced seven times as much of the protein as normal brain cells did."

"Another part of the experiment offered evidence that the cellular compound that initiates cell death also protects BACE from being destroyed."

"All this is important, says Tesco, because BACE protein prompts cells to produce notorious amyloid beta molecules. Amyloid beta compounds clump together
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