Plasmon-Activated Water Reduces Amyloid Burden and Improves Memory in Animals with Alzheimer’s Disease

With the great extension of the human lifespan in recent times, many aging diseases have inevitably followed. Dementia is one of the most-commom neurodegenerative aging diseases, in which inflammation-related Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most prevalent cause of dementia. Amyloid accumulation in the brain, which occurs before any clinical presentations, might be the first and key step in the development of AD. However, many clinical trials have attempted to remove amyloid from brains of AD patients, but none has so far been successful. Negatively charged plasmon-activated water (PAW) is created by resonantly illuminated gold (Au) nanoparticles (NPs), which reduce the hydrogen-bonded (HB) structure of water. PAW was found to possess anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory effects. Herein, we report on an innovative strategy to retard the progression of AD by the daily consumption of PAW instead of normal deionized (DI) water. APPswe/PS1dE9 transgenic mice were treated with PAW or DI water from the age of 5 months for the next 9 months. Encouragingly, compared to DI water-treated mice, mice treated with PAW presented better memory performance on a test of novel object recognition and had a significantly lower amyloid burden according to 18F-florbetapir amyloid-PET and phosphorylated (p)-tau burden according to Western blotting and immunohistochemistry measurements. There were no obvious side effects in PAW-treated mice. Collectively, our findings support that PAW was able to reduce the amyloid and p-tau burden and improve memory in an AD mouse model. However, the protein levels of molecules involved in amyloid metabolism and oligomeric amyloid did not change. We propose that the effects of PAW of reducing the amyloid burden and improving memory function cannot be attributed to synthesis/degradation of amyloid-βprotein but probably in preventing aggregation of amyloid-β proteins or other mechanisms, including anti-inflammation. Further applications of PAW in clinical trials to prevent the progression of AD are being designed.