Skin Cancers May Reduce Risk for Alzheimer’s

Researchers have long been puzzled by the relationship between aizheimer?

and skin cancer: People with basal cell or aquamous cell

carcinomas—two of the less deadly forms of the disease— have a lower rate of Alzheimer’s. Now a new study of nearly 83,000 patients with the more dangerous malignant melanoma has found that they, too, got Alzheimer’s disease at a lower rate—61 percent lower than people who didn’t have melanoma. Researchers aren’t sure whether the connection is neurological, biological (do the skin cancer cells somehow protect the brain?), or both, but they hope that this additional study showing the connection between the two diseases will lead to more in-depth research.