“In the United States, there have to do with 7 million individuals dealing with Alzheimer’s and millions more with associated dementias such as Lewy body or frontotemporal dementia, “stated co-senior author Dr. Ramon Sun, director of the Center for Advanced Spatial Biomolecule Research and associate director for development of the University of Florida’s McKnight Brain Institute.

“A great deal of these individuals actively take an over the counter supplement that might be making their illness development even worse.”

As glucosamine is commonly offered and frequently utilized by senior citizens for joint health, Dr. Sun and associates set out to examine whether it might have any result in Alzheimer’s illness and associated dementias.

They discovered that brains impacted by Alzheimer’s bring abnormally high levels of N-glycans, sugar chains connected to proteins. They call this phenomenon ‘hyperglycosylation.’

The boost appeared in brain tissue from departed Alzheimer’s clients and grew more noticable in the brain’s noodle at later phases of the illness. It likewise appeared in 2 mouse designs of the illness.

“Proteins are the cell’s molecular devices, and a number of them require sugar tags included simply properly to fold properly, travel to the best location and do their tasks,” stated co-senior author Dr. Matt Gentry, chair of the University of Florida Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

“What we discovered in Alzheimer’s is that this sugar-tagging system seems overactive.”

“The Alzheimer’s brain is including a lot of these sugar structures, and this appears to add to the illness instead of secure versus it.”

Experiments in mice recommended the cause is increased production of these sugar chains, not a failure to break them down.

When the scientists decreased glycan production, either by silencing a gene called PGM3 or with a drug called NGI-1, mice with Alzheimer’s-like illness did much better on a social memory test.

Offering the mice glucosamine, which feeds the glycan-building path, increased glycans in their brains and aggravated their memory.

Neither technique altered amyloid plaques, a trademark of the illness.

The researchers likewise examined electronic health records from the University of Florida’s health system.

Amongst clients with Alzheimer’s-associated dementias, those with recorded glucosamine usage for a minimum of a year had about a 25% greater death threat.

Amongst clients with moderate cognitive problems, glucosamine users had to do with 25% most likely to advance to dementia, though their survival did not vary substantially from non-users.

About 8% of clients in the records were determined as glucosamine users.

The authors warn that their human information are observational, and the findings do not show that glucosamine triggers damage in individuals. Glucosamine did not raise brain glycans or hinder memory in healthy mice.

“Our outcomes recommend that modified metabolic process is a considerable factor to Alzheimer’s development and, in addition, attending to the metabolic flaw might be a crucial enhance to techniques concentrated on Alzheimer’s plaques and tangles,” Dr. Sun stated.

The outcomes were released in the journal Nature Metabolism

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T.R. Hawkinson et al2026. Hyperglycosylation is a metabolic chauffeur of Alzheimer’s illness. Nat Metab 8, 1410-1425; doi: 10.1038/ s42255-026-01538-4