Smoking pot may stave off Alzheimer’s

[Martin]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15145917/

Marijuana may help stave off Alzheimer’s

Active ingredient in pot may help preserve brain function

WASHINGTON - Good news for aging hippies: smoking pot may stave off Alzheimer’s disease.

New research shows that the active ingredient in marijuana may prevent the progression of the disease by preserving levels of an important neurotransmitter that allows the brain to function.

Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in California found that marijuana’s active ingredient, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, can prevent the neurotransmitter acetylcholine from breaking down more effectively than commercially marketed drugs.

THC is also more effective at blocking clumps of protein that can inhibit memory and cognition in Alzheimer’s patients, the researchers reported in the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics.

The researchers said their discovery could lead to more effective drug treatment for Alzheimer’s, the leading cause of dementia among the elderly.

Those afflicted with Alzheimer’s suffer from memory loss, impaired decision-making, and diminished language and movement skills. The ultimate cause of the disease is unknown, though it is believed to be hereditary.

Marijuana is used to relieve glaucoma and can help reduce side effects from cancer and AIDS treatment.

[Swiss Miss]

Nice!

I think really what it does is take some of your short term memory and carry it to the back to the long term memory club. And then you get hungry because of all that work of memory moving. Yeah...

[waltky]

Have heard that cannabis can help delay the worsening of glacoma, maybe there is a connection between Alzheimer's and glaucoma.

Some Alzheimer's drugs can do double duty...

Alzheimer's drugs 'help glaucoma'
Monday, 6 August 2007, Drugs which slow the progress of Alzheimer's disease may protect patients at risk of eye damage from glaucoma, say researchers.

The University College London team said experiments suggested there were strong similarities between the conditions. But they stress that the 500,000 UK people with glaucoma are not at higher risk of Alzheimer's. The research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is welcomed by a leading eye charity.

At the moment, little is known about the origins of glaucoma, although patients are offered operations and drug treatment to treat raised pressure within the eye, which can harm eyesight by interfering with blood supply to the optic nerve.

Some glaucoma patients have normal eye pressure, but still lose their eyesight, and the research team, led by Dr Francesca Cordeiro, said that the link with Alzheimer's could offer more clues to glaucoma's causes, and lead to treatments.

Nerve damage

[waltky]

Maybe high cholesterol causes Alzheimer's?

Heart attack drug may ward off Alzheimer’s
August 28, 2007 - Taking statins may help to prevent Alzheimer’s disease, a study has directly suggested for the first time.

Researchers in the US claim to have uncovered clear evidence that the cholesterol-lowering drugs – taken daily by about three million people in Britain – could ward off the illness. The large-scale study, conducted at Boston University from 2002, found that the drugs may cut the risk of getting Alzheimer’s by as much as 79 per cent, even in people thought to be genetically susceptible to the disease. The lead author, Gail Li, said the study was the first to compare the brains of people who had received statins with those who had not.

Previous research has indicated that Alzheimer’s may be caused by poor blood flow and vascular changes in the brain, which statins may help to prevent. Dr Li, from the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, and her colleagues examined the brains of 110 Americans who had died aged between 65 and 79, and had donated their organs for research.

The two changes in the brain considered the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s are known as brain “plaques” and “tangles”. These are protein deposits that appear to spread in the brain, although the cause of Alzheimer’s is not yet fully understood. The researchers found significantly fewer tangles in the brains of people who had taken statins than those who had not, even allowing for variables such as age, gender and past health.

MORE

[waltky]

Sniff your Alzheimer's away...

Scientists develop nasal spray to treat Alzheimer's
Monday 1st October, 2007 - Israeli scientists claim to have developed a nasal spray that may ease the devastating symptoms of Alzheimer's disease -- brain disorder commonly found in people over the age of 65.

There is no cure for the disease and no proven treatment is available to slow its progression. However, there are a number of medicines available that may help improve the mental function of people with the symptoms. Existing pills can delay the progress of symptoms such as memory loss but their effectiveness is limited.

Researchers at the Tel Aviv University have developed the nasal spray, which improved memory and learning in mice with a disease similar to Alzheimer's, reported the online edition of the Daily Mail.

The drug also improved the mice's memory and learning, and restored their sense of smell, which is often lost early in the onset of Alzheimer's. The mice showed good recovery of their cognitive function, the researchers said. Experts believe that the world could be gripped by an Alzheimer's epidemic by 2050 as life expectancies increase.

Scientists develop nasal spray to treat Alzheimer's

[waltky]

New Alzheimer's test...

Stanford researchers find blood test for Alzheimer's
Oct 15, 2007 - Researchers at Stanford University have developed a new blood test that could potentially be used to diagnose Alzheimer's disease.

The test shows promise in predicting which patients with mild memory loss are at high risk of developing the disease, which at this point can be diagnosed only by ruling out other possible causes. The Stanford team, led by neuroscientist Tony Wyss-Coray, announced its findings in the newest issue of Nature Medicine. Its key findings: the identification of 18 distinctive proteins that appear with surprising consistency in the blood of Alzheimer's patients.

To do so, they screened out 120 such proteins that circulate in the blood and then created a test that lights up when the 18 biomarkers are present in a blood sample. Though premature, the test's potential is garnering huge attention. In one experiment using stored blood samples, it proved positive for the disease in 38 out of 42 patients who had already been independently diagnosed.

Wyss-Coray is co-founder of Satoris Inc., a small company headquartered at the UCSF campus in Mission Bay, to commercialize the technology. The company is working to bring two tests to the commercial market - one a diagnostic test for Alzheimer's disease, the second a test for mild cognitive impairment.

MORE

[waltky]

Strange quirk to Alzheimer's...

Alzheimer's memory loss faster among well-educated
Mon Oct 22, 2007 : Having more years of formal education delays the memory loss linked to Alzheimer's disease, but once the condition begins to take hold, better-educated people decline more rapidly, researchers said on Monday.

Their study, published in the journal Neurology, tracked memory loss in a group of elderly people from New York City's Bronx borough before they were diagnosed with Alzheimer's or another form of old-age dementia. Every year of education delayed the accelerated memory decline that precedes dementia by about 2-1/2 months, according to the researchers at Yeshiva University's Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

But once this memory loss began, the rate of decline unfolded 4 percent more quickly for each additional year of education, the researchers said. Someone with 16 years of schooling might experience memory decline 50 percent more quickly than another person with just four years education, based on the findings.

Alzheimer's disease is a degenerative brain malady that is the most common form of dementia among the elderly. "An elderly person who starts to see memory loss might well deteriorate fairly rapidly, particularly if he or she has a high education or high IQ," Charles Hall, a professor of epidemiology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

MORE

[waltky]

Dual use for HBP drugs...

Hypertension Drugs May Prevent Alzheimer's
Oct. 26, 2007 - Some Drugs Used To Treat High Blood Pressure May Help Prevent Alzheimer's Disease

Certain drugs for hypertension, also known as high blood pressure, may counter Alzheimer's disease. That news comes from lab tests on mice, not people.

The researchers who conducted those tests aren't ready to recommend blood pressure drugs for Alzheimer's prevention, but they see good reason to test the possibility. "The use of these drugs for their potential anti-Alzheimer's disease role is still highly experimental," says Giulio Maria Pasinetti, M.D., Ph.D., in a news release.

Pasinetti -- who works at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine - had read previous studies linking high blood pressure drugs to reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease. Those studies were based on patients' medical records, not direct tests of the drugs. So Pasinetti's team headed to their lab to do some experiments.

Alzheimer's Experiment

[waltky]

Granny says, "Hold off on the pot, it'll only make ya goofy. Not as many affected as first thought...

Alzheimer’s afflicts 10 percent of elderly
Tues., Oct. 30, 2007 - Fewer Americans have disease than previously estimated, researchers say

WASHINGTON - About 10 percent of Americans aged 71 and up, or 2.4 million people, have Alzheimer's disease and 1 million more have some other form of dementia, researchers said on Tuesday, offering figures lower than some widely cited estimates. The National Institutes of Health, which funded the study, called it the first to gauge U.S. rates of Alzheimer's and other dementia using a nationally representative sample of elderly people.

"Most studies have been limited to a small region of the country or a few cities within the country, and then have used the findings from local regions to project the estimates of dementia," Brenda Plassman of Duke University Medical Center, one of the researchers, said in a telephone interview.

"Our study has examined people in all regions of the U.S. and then estimated the prevalence," Plassman added. The researchers based their findings on evaluations of 856 people ages 71 and older from 42 states, all of whom were interviewed and evaluated at their homes from 2001 to 2003.

More Alzheimer’s afflicts 10 percent of elderly - Alzheimer's Disease - MSNBC.com

[waltky]

Alzheimer's - cold sore virus link...

Alzheimer's cold sore virus link
Thursday, 1 November 2007, The cold sore virus has been linked to Alzheimer's disease

Evidence is building that the cold sore virus may be linked to Alzheimer's disease, an expert says. In lab tests, Manchester University found brains infected with the herpes simplex virus, HSV-1, saw a rise in a protein linked to Alzheimer's.

Scientists believe the discovery could pave the way for a vaccine that may help prevent the brain disorder, New Scientist magazine reported. But such a breakthrough was a long-time off, experts said.

The researchers infected cultures of human brain cells with the virus and found a "dramatic" increase in levels of the beta amyloid protein - the building blocks of deposits, or plaques, which form in the brains of people with Alzheimer's.

A similar increase was seen in the brains of mice infected with HSV-1. In a separate experiment, the team stained brain slices taken from dead Alzheimer's patients and found DNA from HSV-1 attached to the plaques.

Gene interaction