Plasmalogen

And the ability to compartmentalize these functions is made by living material called phospholipids.

Plasmalogens are a critical component of that.

And what plasmalogens do, so they're everywhere.

Like 50% of lipids of your heart are plasmalogens.

So in Alzheimer's disease, as we get older, our paroxysmal function can decline.

Our oxidative stress levels can get elevated.

Plasmalogens get depleted.

And that's how plasmalogens and their association with aging and Alzheimer's disease was determined using this mass spectrometry technology.

Think of a cell membrane as a soap bubble that has to last 80 years.

Plasmalogens are the stretchy, sacrificial part of the film, and they leave.

In people, plasmalogen levels drop hard with age, on the order of 40% from mid-adulthood into the 70s.

In Alzheimer's brains, they drop further still, white matter first, then gray.