Smoking pot may stave off Alzheimer’s

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Alzheimer’s linked to high blood pressure...

High blood pressure may worsen Alzheimer's
Wed., Nov. 28, 2007 - Brain becomes more vulnerable to brain-wasting disease, study finds

Having high blood pressure reduces blood flow in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, making them more vulnerable to the effects of the disease, researchers reported on Wednesday. Researchers used a magnetic resonance imaging technique to measure blood flow in the brains of 68 older adults. They found cerebral blood flow was substantially decreased in all patients with high blood pressure and was the lowest in Alzheimer’s patients with high blood pressure.

“What we think may be happening is hypertension reflects an extra hit to the brain,” said Cyrus Raji of the University of Pittsburgh, who led the study. The study compared Alzheimer patients to adults with normal cognitive function and a group with mild cognitive impairment, defined as a transitional stage between dementia and normal, age-related deficits in language, attention and reasoning.

Half of the patients in each of the three groups had high blood pressure and half did not. The researchers used an imaging program called arterial spin-labeled MRI, which calculates blood flow per minute in a section of brain tissue and does not require use of a contrast agent. Contrast agents are compounds the patient receives either orally or intravenously to make the MRI scan easier to see.

More Alzheimer’s linked to high blood pressure - Alzheimer's Disease - MSNBC.com

[waltky]

Maybe he was smoked up on pot...

Man shoots wife to end Alzheimer's suffering
December 02, 2007 - AN elderly Italian man burst into a hospital ward where his wife was being treated for Alzheimer's disease today and killed her with three gunshots because he "couldn't stand seeing her suffering", he told police.

The 77-year-old man, whose name was not given by police, shot his 82-year-old wife in the face and heart in full view of other patients and staff in the hospital in the Tuscan city of Prato and was arrested immediately.

It was not clear what charges he would face.

The woman had been suffering for eight years from the illness, which affects elderly people and brings on dementia, and had been admitted to hospital earlier in the week, police said.

Man shoots wife to end Alzheimer's suffering | NEWS.com.au

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Forgot where you put your keys? Or your car? If you are over 60, it may just be a normal part of aging, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday in a study that suggests brain structures deteriorate with age in otherwise healthy people. The study, published in the journal Neuron, is part of an effort by researchers at Harvard University to understand the difference between normal, age-related declines and clinical impairment.

"We're trying to understand the edge of that boundary between normal aging and Alzheimer's disease," said Randy Buckner, a Harvard professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher who worked on the study. Buckner and colleagues took brain scans of 55 adults ages 60 and over, and 38 younger adults ages 35 and younger. They used an imaging technique called PET to detect the presence of amyloid, a chemical typically associated with Alzheimer's disease, to rule out those whose memory declines were disease-related.

With Age, Brain Becomes Less Coordinated
Dec 5, 2007 - Researchers Point to Degradation in Communication Pathways Between Brain's Different Regions

What they found is that some brain systems become less coordinated with age. "It looks like it is an effect of normal aging independent of Alzheimer's disease," Buckner said in a telephone interview. They found brain structures called white matter tracks, which carry information between different regions of the brain, were deteriorating only in the older group.

The rest of it...

[waltky]

HBP - dementia link...

High blood pressure linked to dementia
Mon., Dec. 10, 2007 WASHINGTON - Hypertension leads to mild cognitive impairment, new research suggests

Elderly people with high blood pressure may be more likely to develop thinking and learning problems that can lead to dementia, researchers said on Monday. Hypertension was linked to one of two types of mild cognitive impairment, a condition that can foreshadow the development of dementia, but not the type strongly associated with Alzheimer’s disease, according to the study published in the journal Archives of Neurology.

People with mild cognitive impairment can have difficulties with language, memory, attention span or other mental functions significant enough to be noticeable to other people and to be detected in tests. One type significantly affects memory, and the other does not. The impairment is not enough to interfere with daily life and the person does not show other symptoms of dementia.

The elderly people with high blood pressure in this study often had a form of mild cognitive impairment that can be a precursor to vascular dementia, the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer’s disease. It is often associated with stroke. High blood pressure raises the risk for stroke.

“It looks like hypertension leads to a cognitive impairment which is actually not really memory impairment but impairment in other cognitive domains,” in particular, language and the ability to perform familiar tasks, Dr. Christiane Reitz of Columbia University Medical Center in New York, one of the researchers, said in a telephone interview.

More High blood pressure linked to dementia - Heart health - MSNBC.com

[waltky]

Right about the same time drinking starts to catch up with the alcoholic...

Alzheimer's disease may begin in midlife
Dec. 26, 2007 -- Alzheimer's disease may begin in midlife, although the mind-killing condition is not diagnosed until a patient begins to show symptoms, U.S. researchers say.

"Alzheimer's disease may be a chronic condition in which change begins in midlife or even earlier," Dr. John C. Morris, director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at Washington University in St. Louis told The New York Times. Morris has been studying the possible progression of Alzheimer's in a healthy 52-year-old woman whose mother, grandmother and maternal great-aunt all had dementia to detect symptoms as early as possible.

The woman has volunteered for batteries of mental tests, MRIs, PET scans and spinal taps to help researchers who say early detection and treatment may be the only way to halt progression of Alzheimer's before brain damage spreads.

Since November, PET scans using an experimental radioactive dye called Pittsburgh Compound B have detected deposits of beta amyloid, an Alzheimer's-related protein, in the brains of five patients, the Times reported. Scientists say studies using the dye found A-beta deposits in up to 25 percent of normal people over age 65.

There currently is no definitive genetic test for biomarkers for Alzheimer's, which was first recognized in the early 1900s. The Alzheimer's Associated estimates 5 million U.S. residents have Alzheimer's and 66,000 die of the disease annually.

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[waltky]

Sometimes Granny acts kinda 'teched' - but we just ignore it...

Brain disease lurks in minds of most seniors
Fri., Dec. 28, 2007 - Study: Even those with no outward signs of dementia have abnormalities

Results of a brain autopsy study indicate that most older adults have significant brain disease, regardless of the presence or absence of outward signs of dementia. As part of the long-term Rush Memory and Aging Project, researchers evaluated the spectrum of abnormalities found in the brains of 141 older adults, with and without clinically evident dementia. At the time of death, only 20 persons (14.2 percent) were free of brain disease, Dr. Julie A. Schneider, from Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, and colleagues found.

Most older persons with dementia (i.e., memory and other cognitive impairments) had more than one type of pathology in their brain causing the impairment, Schneider told Reuters Health. “This most commonly was Alzheimer’s disease pathology and cerebral infarcts (strokes), followed by Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body disease, a disease related to Parkinson’s disease,” she said.

Older persons without dementia also frequently had brain disease, most commonly Alzheimer’s-like disease, but also multiple other abnormalities, Schneider noted. Having more than one disease in the brain significantly increased the likelihood that symptoms of dementia will be present. “Older persons can often handle one pathology in their brain, but the burden of more than one pathology may tip them over the threshold of clinical dementia,” Schneider said.

Therefore, prevention of not only Alzheimer’s disease but these other pathologies, particularly stroke and those things that may increase the risk of stroke, like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cigarette smoking, obesity, “are likely to significantly decrease the prevalence of dementia,” Schneider added. The findings are published in the journal Neurology. Based on this study, write two neurologists in an accompanying editorial, “we may wish to maximize medical management of vascular risk factors in the growing elderly population, regardless of whether cognition is still normal or there are signs of overt dementia.”

Brain disease lurks in minds of most seniors - Aging - MSNBC.com

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A shot to cure Alzheimer's?...

Injection helps reverse Alzheimer's
January 10, 2008 - A PATIENT with Alzheimer's disease had their condition improve hugely just minutes after receiving a special injection, according to a breakthrough study.

The drug Etanercept, which has been approved by the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration to treat arthritis patients, dramatically reversed symptoms of an Alzheimer’s disease sufferer’ minutes after it was injected into their spines, researchers in the US discovered. A report on the study, Rapid cognitive improvement in Alzheimer’s disease following perispinal etanercept administration, appeared in the Journal of Neuroinflammation yesterday.

Journal editor Professor Sue Griffin from the University of Arkansas said the study was an “exciting” breakthrough which provided a greater understanding of the disease. “It is unprecedented that we can see cognitive and behavioural improvement in a patient with established dementia within minutes of therapeutic intervention,” Prof Griffin said.

“This gives all of us in Alzheimer’s research a tremendous new clue about new avenues of research, which is so exciting and so needed in the field of Alzheimer’s. “Even though this report predominantly discusses a single patient, it is of significant scientific interest because of the potential insight it may give into the processes involved in the brain dysfunction of Alzheimer’s.”

MORE

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British dementia life study...

Dementia patients live about 4 1/2 years
Fri., Jan. 11, 2008 - Study could help caregivers plan for patients with Alzheimer's

People with dementia survive an average 4 1/2 years after diagnosis, researchers said on Friday in a study they hope might help caregivers plan for patients with Alzheimer’s and other, similar illnesses. Researchers know dementia raises the risk of dying early, but the study is the first to estimate how long people are likely to survive with the condition, said Carol Brayne, a researcher at the Institute of Public Health at the University of Cambridge.

“This gives people a rough idea of how long they are looking at,” said Brayne, who led the study published in the British Medical Journal. “This can add more to the information that physicians and families have.” An estimated 24 million people worldwide have the mental confusion marked by memory loss and problems with orientation that signals Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

The researchers, who said the number of people with dementia was expected to rise to 81 million globally by 2040, studied 13,000 people aged 65 or older who were assessed for the condition at regular intervals between 1991 to 2005. During this time, 438 people developed dementia, of whom 81 percent died. Age, gender and disability were the main factors determining how long a person survived, the researchers said.

More Dementia patients live about 4 1/2 years - Alzheimer's Disease - MSNBC.com

[waltky]

Could be people don't drink as much as they used to...

Level of schooling may protect brain against memory loss
20 Feb. `08 - Memory problems, including Alzheimer's, appeared less common in people 70 and older in 2002, compared with seniors nearly a decade earlier, a study out today says.

Seniors in 2002 might have gained protection from memory loss because they had more education and were more likely to pay attention to cardiovascular risk factors that can harm the heart and also damage the brain, says study author Kenneth Langa at the University of Michigan. Langa and his colleagues first studied 7,406 people who at age 70 and older took a standard test of memory and thinking ability in 1993. The team found 12.2% of the group had serious memory problems and possibly Alzheimer's.

The team then studied 7,104 people who reached the age of 70 almost a decade later in 2002. They found 8.7% of these seniors scored as low on the memory test, the team reports in today's Alzheimer's & Dementia journal. What accounts for the better brain health in the 2002 group?

No one knows for sure, but this study adds to evidence that suggests highly educated people are more likely to have a reserve of brainpower that protects them from memory problems. Seniors who took the test in 2002 had an average of 12 years of formal schooling, a year more than those took the test in 1993.

More Level of schooling may protect brain against memory loss - USATODAY.com

[waltky]

Had a tax client die with Alzheimer's this past year.

Maybe it would help, maybe not. But if it would relieve their symptoms or help them get through the final stages, it can't be all bad...

Cannabis may help Alzheimer's patients
March 15, 2008 -- An Israeli study suggests medicines derived from cannabis may someday provide benefits for patients with Alzheimer's disease.

The research, conducted by Raphael Mechoulam of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was presented Monday in Britain at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain.

Mechoulam said early results of the research indicate memory loss can be slowed down significantly in mice by some of the chemicals present in cannabis. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society said the next step will be to initiate human trials to see if the same effect can be achieved on the human brain.

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