Smoking pot may stave off Alzheimer’s

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New treatment protocol...

Study suggests new tack in treating, caring for Alzheimer's patients
July 28, 2008 | Chicago Tribune reporter Researchers from Kansas are offering a rare glimpse into the interior world of Alzheimer's patients with a new study set to be presented at a major international conference in Chicago this week.

The study, while small, is highly suggestive. Key findings indicate that patients—even those who may seem deeply disoriented or cognitively impaired—dislike being patronized or treated as if they are children. This suggests that a sense of adult identity remains intact in people with dementia, even when individuals aren't able to remember how old they are, where they are, what day it is or which family members are alive and present.

How people experience Alzheimer's disease, especially in its latter stages, is a mystery because those who suffer the illness lose the ability to articulate their thoughts and feelings. In the Kansas study, researchers tried to get around this hurdle by videotaping 20 elderly men and women living in three nursing homes during the course of a day as aides helped them bathe, brush their teeth, dress, eat and take their medicines, among other activities.

Researchers then analyzed the tapes, assessing how the manner in which staff interacted with patients influenced patients' behavior and the quality of care. They discovered that when nursing aides communicated in a kind of baby talk for seniors—using a high-pitched sing-song tone, comments like "good girl," diminutives like "honey" and language that assumed a state of dependency ("are we ready for our bath?")—Alzheimer's patients were twice as likely to resist their efforts to help.

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‘Pre-Alzheimer’s’ rising, especially among men
Mon., July. 28, 2008 - Report: A million older Americans slide into mild mental decline each year

A milder type of mental decline that often precedes Alzheimer’s disease is alarmingly more common than has been believed, and in men more than women, doctors reported Monday. Nearly a million older Americans slide from normal memory into mild impairment each year, researchers estimate, based on a Mayo Clinic study of Minnesota residents.

That’s on top of the half million Americans who develop full-blown Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia — a problem sure to grow as baby boomers age. The oldest boomers turn 62 this year. “We’re seeing that in fact there’s a much larger burgeoning problem out there” of people at risk of developing dementia, said Dr. Ronald Petersen, the Mayo scientist who led the study.

Dr. Ralph Nixon, a New York University psychiatrist and scientific adviser to the Alzheimer’s Association, was blunt. “We’re facing a crisis,” he said. There are no treatments now to prevent this mental slide or reverse it once it starts.

More than ‘senior moments’

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Can cholesterol-lowering drugs reduce the risk of dementia?...

Statins may reduce dementia risk
Jul 28, 2008 | The cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins, taken by more than 15 million Americans, have proven to be a powerful weapon in the battle against heart disease.

Now, new research indicates that statins may benefit the brain as well. A study appearing Monday in the journal Neurology found that statins dramatically reduced the risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer's disease among a group of subjects 60 years and older. "It suggests that if you took statins before dementia set in, you might be 50% less likely to develop the condition," says Mary Haan, an epidemiology professor at the University of Michigan and the study's lead author. "That's a really big effect."

The potential of statins to treat dementia and Alzheimer's has been the subject of investigation for years, but to date the results have been mixed. While no clear benefit has been established for the treatment of existing dementia, studies gauging the ability of statins to prevent the disease in cognitively healthy people have been slightly more promising. But exactly how statins affect cognition remains a mystery. And experts say it's one of several puzzles that must be solved before doctors and patients can harness the full potential of these drugs, which have already become a staple of the American medicine cabinet.

Haan and her colleagues followed 1,674 elderly Mexican Americans for five years, all of whom were dementia-free at the start of the study. They monitored both mental and physical health every 12 to15 months. After adjusting for factors like education, smoking status and genetic pre-disposition, statin users were found to have a 50% lower risk of developing dementia than those not taking the drugs.

More Study: Statins Reduce the Risk of Dementia | Newsweek Health | Newsweek.com

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Experimental Alzheimer's Drug Shows Early Promise...

'Fantastic' New Hope for Alzheimer's?
July 29, 2008 - Experimental drug halts Alzheimer's progression in midstage study; 'fantastic' one expert says

For the first time, an experimental drug shows promise for halting the progression of Alzheimer's disease by taking a new approach: breaking up the protein tangles that clog victims' brains. The encouraging results from the drug called Rember, reported Tuesday at a medical conference in Chicago, electrified a field battered by recent setbacks. The drug was developed by Singapore-based TauRx Therapeutics. Even if bigger, more rigorous studies show it works, Rember is still several years away from being available, and experts warned against overexuberance. But they were excited. "These are the first very positive results I've seen" for stopping mental decline, said Marcelle Morrison-Bogorad, director of Alzheimer's research at the National Institute on Aging. "It's just fantastic."

The federal agency funded early research into the tangles, which are made of a protein called tau and develop inside nerve cells. For decades, scientists have focused on a different protein - beta-amyloid, which forms sticky clumps outside of the cells - but have yet to get a workable treatment. The drug is in the second of three stages of development, and scientists are paying special attention to potential treatments because of the enormity of the illness, which afflicts more than 26 million people worldwide and is mushrooming as the population ages.

The four Alzheimer's drugs currently available just ease symptoms of the mind-robbing disease. TauRx's chief is Claude Wischik, a biologist at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland who long has done key research on tau tangles and studies suggesting that Rember can dissolve them. He is an "esteemed biologist," and the research "comes with his credibility attached to it," said Dr. Sam Gandy of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. He heads the scientific advisory panel of the Alzheimer's Association.

More ABC News: 'Fantastic' New Hope for Alzheimer's?

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Must be an Alzheimer's symposium goin' on...

Singles 'face Alzheimer's risk'
Wednesday, 30 July 2008 - Being single when you reach middle age could increase your risk of dementia, a study suggests.

Swedish research, presented at a US conference, found that marriage or having a partner halved the risk of developing dementia. Scientists believe social interaction between couples may ward off illness. The Alzheimer's Research Trust said the results were worrying, given the high divorce rates in the UK. "These findings are particularly worrying for the UK - a society with a high divorce rate, marriage at an all-time low, and ageing population" - Rebecca Wood, Alzheimer's Research Trust

The study by the Karolinska Institute suggested that the problem might be even greater for some people. Divorcees who remained single, they noticed, had a trebled risk of dementia, while those widowed at a young age who stayed single faced a six times greater chance. The research looked at 1,449 people from a Finnish database, who were asked about their relationship status in mid-life, then revisited 21 years later to see if they had developed dementia. In total, 139 of them had some sort of cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer's had been diagnosed in 48 of these. Even after other factors which might have an impact on dementia were adjusted for, the study consistently showed people with partners as less prone to the illness.

Advice for the single

Dr Krister Hakansson, who led the study, said: "Living in a couple relationship is normally one of the most intense forms of social and intellectual stimulation. "If social and cognitive challenges can protect against dementia, so should living as a couple. "Singletons shouldn't worry - there are many other ways to reduce your risk of dementia that don't involve popping the question " - Susanne Sorenson, Alzheimer's Society

More BBC NEWS | Health | Singles 'face Alzheimer's risk'

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Elderly frailty link to Alzheimer's...

Physical Frailty Could Predict Alzheimer's Disease
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 13,`08 -- Physical frailty among the elderly may be linked to early Alzheimer's disease, regardless of whether or not patients develop dementia, new research reveals.

The finding, based on brain autopsies of deceased elderly patients, raises the notion that motor impairment in the elderly is an early symptom of Alzheimer's -- one that appears before mental decline. It could also turn out to be that frailty and Alzheimer's are not directly linked but stem from a common origin, researchers say.

"What we know is that if you see a very frail person next to somebody not so frail, the very frail person is more likely to have Alzheimer's pathology in their brain when they die," said study lead author Dr. Aron S. Buchman, an associate professor in the department of neurological sciences at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

"This is important as we try to wrap our heads around the biology of aging," he added. "Because it turns out that as you get older Alzheimer's pathology, signs of its development are really ubiquitous, even if that doesn't mean that you actually have dementia. So, this finding could alter the way most medical and non-medical people conceptualize Alzheimer's -- as a disease simply of impaired memory and cognition -- while expanding our view of what it actually means to become frail." Buchman and his colleagues were expected to publish their findings in the Aug. 12 issue ofNeurology.

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Puzzling beta-amyloid levels...

Brain injury study adds to Alzheimer’s enigma
Thurs., Aug. 28, 2008 WASHINGTON - But the research involving a key protein may one day help assess one's risk

Scientists for the first time have peered into people's brains to directly measure the ebb and flow of a substance notorious for its role in Alzheimer's disease. The delicate research was performed not with Alzheimer's patients but with people suffering severe brain injuries — because a brain injury increases the risk of developing dementia later in life.

The goal is to learn why, so that doctors one day might be able to lower that risk. But with this first-step study, a team of scientists from Missouri and Italy got a surprise.

Too much of that Alzheimer's-related protein, called beta-amyloid, is thought to be harmful. So the team had expected beta-amyloid levels to spike right after the injury and then drop as patients recovered.

Surprising discovery

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Ignorance rears its ugly head...

Do Alzheimer's Patients Have a 'Duty to Die?'
Sept. 25, 2008 - Ethicists, Alzheimer's Advocates Decry Baroness Mary Warnock's Comments

When Dr. Jonathan Groner, a surgeon and ethicist at Ohio State University, heard of a suggestion by a well-known British philosopher that those with dementia have a "duty to die" in order to minimize the burden they place on society and their families, he was troubled. First, there were the moral implications of the comments that 84-year-old Baroness Mary Helen Warnock shared with the Church of Scotland's Life and Work magazine last week, in which she stated, "If you're demented, you're wasting people's lives -- your family's lives -- and you're wasting the resources of the National Health Service."

Such a policy could put society on a slippery slope, he said. And he noted many of the potential moral pitfalls accompanying the suggestion that those suffering from dementia should make a decision to end their own lives. But Groner said losing his own father to Alzheimer's in January has perhaps given him the most insight into the issue -- and why the lives of dementia sufferers must not be devalued. "I think that people with dementia are not worthless," Groner said. "Dementia is a huge problem, and it will be a growing one as more people get dementia. But trying to kill them off is probably not the best solution."

Groner is not alone in his opinion. Ethicists and Alzheimer's advocacy groups alike are expressing outrage over Warnock's comments last week, which echoed the opinion she put forth in an article she authored for a Norwegian periodical, titled "A Duty to Die?" "The suggestion made by Baroness Mary Warnock is ignorant, insensitive and cruel, and denies the humanity of people with Alzheimer's and dementia," the Alzheimer's Association said in a statement issued Wednesday.

More ABC News: Do Alzheimer's Patients Have a 'Duty to Die?'

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Alzheimer's research progress...

More Alzheimer's genes found
October 31, 2008 - RESEARCHERS combing the human gene map have found four more areas that affect the risk of Alzheimer's disease and believe the studies are starting to point to new and better treatments.

Some of the genes, associated with the most common form of Alzheimer's, appear linked to known genetic risks for the degenerative brain disorder, the team at Harvard Medical School in Boston reported today. "We are on the cusp of a rare 'science moment' that could alter the way we diagnose, treat and prevent Alzheimer's disease," Rudolph Tanzi of Massachusetts General Hospital, who led the study, said.

Mr Tanzi's team analyzed samples from more than 1,300 families for their study, published in the American Journal of Human Genetics. Dozens of genes have been linked with Alzheimer's, most notably the APOE4 gene, which clearly raises the risk of developing the disease.

Mr Tanzi's team did a genome-wide association study, using gene chips to check the activity of all human genes among families with Alzheimer's patients and comparing them with families whose members had not developed the disease. They got the strongest indications from a stretch of DNA on chromosome 14.

More More Alzheimer's genes found | World Breaking News | News.com.au

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Treating frailty in seniors...

Drug may help combat frailty in older adults
Mon., Nov. 3, 2008 - Researchers: MK-677 stimulates growth hormone, can boost muscle mass

An experimental drug known as MK-677 that stimulates growth hormone secretion in the body can boost muscle mass in older adults, perhaps combating physical weakness or "frailty," researchers report. As people age, the decline of growth hormone secretion in the body may play a role in the development of frailty, the debilitating loss of fat and muscle tissue. "Frailty is one of the scourges of elderly persons, and as researchers are beginning to learn about its causes, they are asking whether growth hormone deficiency is one of them," Dr. Michael O. Thorner, from the University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville, and colleagues explain in the latest issue of Annals of Internal Medicine.

The promise of MK-677 is that it seems to restore growth hormone levels, they note. In a "crossover" study, 65 healthy adults, between 60 and 81 years of age, received MK-677 or inactive placebo once daily for 1 year and then switched to the other treatment for 1 year. Over 1 year, patients receiving the drug increased their growth hormone levels to those of healthy young adults, resulting in an increase in lean, fat-free mass. MK-677 induced a transient increase in appetite. Body weight rose by 2.7 kg (5.9 lbs) with MK-677 treatment, but by just 0.8 kg (1.8 lbs) with placebo.

According to the researchers, treatment with MK-677 offset three factors that contribute to loss of muscle mass -- a hallmark of frailty, i.e., reduced growth hormone levels, loss of fat-free mass, and inadequate food intake. The increase in fat-free mass seen with MK-677 therapy, however, did not translate into enhanced strength or function. Nonetheless, "we believe that our study sets the stage for an adequately powered clinical trial of sufficient duration in a population vulnerable to frailty," the investigators conclude.

Drug may help combat frailty in older adults - Aging

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Visual defect in kids may up risk of mental ills
Mon., Nov. 3, 2008 - Children whose eyes turn out are 3 times likelier to develop mental illness

A study released today suggests that children with "exotropia type" strabismus -- a visual defect in which the eyes are misaligned and turn outward - may be at increased risk for developing mental illness by young adulthood. However, children with "esotropia type" strabismus, in which the eyes are turned inward, do not appear to be at increased risk for mental illness in early adulthood, according to the study published in the November issue of Pediatrics.

Strabismus is often informally referred to as "cross-eyes." People with the condition may have one or two eyes that turn inward, outward, up or down. The exact cause of such misalignment is not fully clear. For their study, Dr. Brian G. Mohney and colleagues from Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, reviewed the medical records for 407 patients with childhood strabismus and 407 matched control subjects from Olmsted County, Minnesota.

Through follow-up to an average age of 17.4 years, 41.3 percent of strabismus patients and 30.7 percent of controls were diagnosed with a mental illness. Further analysis showed that children with exotropia type strabismus were 3.1-times more likely to develop a mental illness than their peers without strabismus through an average age of 20.3 years. Children with esotropia type strabismus, as noted, were no more likely than controls to develop mental illness.

"Why exotropia and not esotropia would be associated with the development of mental illness by early adulthood is unclear," Mohney and colleagues admit. "Ocular misalignment would seem to have similar effects on individuals with strabismus regardless of whether it is esotropic or exotropic." They add that "heredity is a more likely basis for any association between exotropia and mental illness."

Visual defect in kids may up risk of mental ills - Kids and parenting

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Vitamin B3 may help with Alzheimer's...

Vitamin 'may be Alzheimer's aid'
Wednesday, 5 November 2008 - Vitamin B3 may help protect the brain from Alzheimer's disease - and even boost memory in healthy people.

US researchers found vitamin B3 lowered levels of a protein linked to Alzheimer's damage in mice. The Journal of Neuroscience study also showed the animals performed better at memory tests. UK Alzheimer's charities said people should not start taking the vitamin before results from human studies. "This suggests that not only is it good for Alzheimer's disease, but if normal people take it, some aspects of their memory might improve" - Professor Frank LaFerla, University of California, Irvine

The vitamin, also called nicotinamide by scientists, is sold in UK pharmacies and health food shops. It has already been shown to help people suffering from diabetes complications and has some anti-inflammatory qualities. The researchers, from the University of California at Irvine, added the vitamin to drinking water given to mice bred to develop a version of Alzheimer's disease, then tested the levels of certain chemicals associated with the condition.

They found that levels of one, called phosphorylated tau, were significantly lower in the animals. This protein is involved in abnormal 'deposits' in brain cells, called 'tangles', which contribute to the brain damage which progressively affects people with Alzheimer's. Using 'water mazes', the team also found some evidence that memory was enhanced in both 'Alzheimer's' mice and unaffected mice.

Normal memory