Alzheimer

Five million Americans have Alzheimer's, a scourge of a disease that is hard to diagnose, harder to predict and, so far, unpreventable and incurable. There is no chemotherapy for Alzheimer's. And the drugs that are currently prescribed are more like bandages on a bleeding wound than the powerful cocktails that tame HIV. The greatest risk factor for the disease is simply getting old ? an unsettling thought for the first wave of baby boomers turning 65 this year. One study estimates that between 7,000 and 10,000 baby boomers will hit that milestone every day for the next 19 years.

One complaint leveled against genome studies is that they don't survey a broad enough swath of humankind. Though many projects have searched DNA collected from people of European descent -- hoping to ferret out which changes in what parts of the genome are linked to this disease or that -- fewer have investigated the genomes of other ethnic groups.  In 2011, Stanford University geneticist and MacArthur "genius" grant recipient Carlos Bustamante discussed...

This post has been corrected. See note at the bottom for details. Amid the generally discouraging news about drugs that can slow or reverse the progress of Alzheimer's disease, a new study is a faint glimmer of hope: In mice whose brains are clogged with the protein deposits that characterize Alzheimer's, a drug called bexarotene substantially reversed key signs of dementia and reduced by half the telltale protein deposits of the disease....

While former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was reported to have died of stroke on Monday, few experts doubt that dementia, the disease she lived with for at least the final 12 years of her life, contributed powerfully to her demise. "Dementia means brain failure, and brain failure ultimately causes death from immobility, malnutrition and infection," among other downstream effects, said Dr. Paul S. Aisen, director of the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study at the University of California San Diego.

High doses of the Alzheimer's drug Aricept should be banned because they are no more effective than low doses and have a sharply increased risk of adverse effects, the advocacy group Public Citizen and a Johns Hopkins University geriatrician said Wednesday in a petition to the Food and Drug Administration. Aricept, known generically as donepezil, is one of the very few drugs available for treating Alzheimer's disease, but it provides only a very modest slowing in the cognitive and functional deficits associated with the disease.

Alzheimer's disease research in the last two decades has focused on the theory that beta-amyloid plaque accumulates in the brain and leads to the loss of cognitive function. However, this theory has not produced advances in treating the disease, with many clinical trials on drugs targeted at amyloid plaques failing. A new hypothesis on the cause of Alzheimer's should be considered, a leading researcher said Tuesday. Age is the most important risk factor in the disease, said Karl Herrup, chairman of the department of cell biology and neuroscience at Rutgers University.

While former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was reported to have died of stroke on Monday, few experts doubt that dementia, the disease she lived with for at least the final 12 years of her life, contributed powerfully to her demise. "Dementia means brain failure, and brain failure ultimately causes death from immobility, malnutrition and infection," among other downstream effects, said Dr. Paul S. Aisen, director of the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study at the University of California San Diego.

In patients with moderate Alzheimer's disease, an experimental drug that alters the brain's "fight or flight" impulse succeeded in improving memory modestly when it was added to at least one of the medications already in wide use to treat the memory-robbing disease. Compared with subjects taking the drug memantine and a placebo, subjects supplementing their customary drug regimen for three months with the experimental drug--ORM-12741--scored more highly on two measures of memory.

You can't say Alzheimer's researchers aren't trying really hard to make progress in preventing and treating the disease. A team of researchers is cycling across the country to raise awareness of the need for more funding for the study of Alzheimer's. The Alzheimer's Breakthrough Ride will pass through Los Angeles on Thursday. Members of the Alzheimer's Assn.'s California Southland Chapter will meet from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in front of the Kodak Theatre, at the corner of Hollywood and Highland, to cheer on the riders.

A vaccine for Alzheimer's disease has been a long-held goal of researchers studying the devastating disease. Research presented Tuesday at the Society for Neuroscience meeting showed one potential vaccine under study appears both safe and effective in an animal model. Most Alzheimer's vaccine research aims to prevent the accumulation of amyloid-beta plaque in the brain that can interfere with memory and cognition. However, work on a vaccine was derailed when a study in 2002 showed that an investigational vaccine targeting amyloid-beta also caused an autoimmune response that led to dangerous inflammation in the brain.

Re "Ambitious effort aims to map brain," April 3 Although I understand President Obama's humorous intent, I don't believe even the most exhaustive understanding of the workings of the brain could even come close to explaining "all kinds of things that go on in Washington. " And sadly, the lack of empathy, compassion, fairness and simple decency exhibited in Washington represents only an example, one small measure of our spiritual collapse. Although the effort to map the brain may result in treatments for Alzheimer's and autism and ways to reverse the effects of a stroke, I hold out little hope that being who we are, that despite the most brilliant and ambitious scientific explorations, we will ever approach a cure for the most pernicious disease of all: man's inhumanity to man. Ronald Rubin Topanga ALSO: Letters: Trashing our oceans Letters: Saving the Watts Towers Letters: Gun control and public opinion

Utah authorities think they have a valuable new use for the ubiquitous ankle bracelet: to locate missing patients with Alzheimer's or dementia.  Officials in Davis County, about half an hour north of Salt Lake City, say the device, which typically monitors criminals on house arrest or parole, could be a cost-effective solution to a common problem. “We think it's just a different application for an existing technology,” Deputy Sheriff Kevin Fielding told the Los Angeles Times.

For seniors and their families, Alzheimer's disease and its hefty price tag are an increasingly scary prospect. About 5.4 million Americans are affected by Alzheimer's disease, making it the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. Because of growing life expectancies and aging baby boomers, that number is expected to triple by 2050. Alayna Tillman's mother and aunt both have Alzheimer's disease and live with Tillman, her husband and two sons in Lake View Terrace. Tillman says Medicare pays for many of the medical costs her mom and aunt incur.

Experimental drug treatments promising to slow or reverse the progression of Alzheimer's disease will need to be assessed with a new and more subtle set of rules, a pair of FDA officials wrote this week. The resulting new guidelines, predict some researchers, should allow Alzheimer's drugs under development to travel a faster path to the U.S. market -- and to the more than 5 million Americans who need them. The new guidelines, issued to drug developers last month and outlined this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, reflect a growing shift among both physicians and researchers toward earlier detection and treatment of the memory-robbing disease.

In patients with moderate Alzheimer's disease, an experimental drug that alters the brain's "fight or flight" impulse succeeded in improving memory modestly when it was added to at least one of the medications already in wide use to treat the memory-robbing disease. Compared with subjects taking the drug memantine and a placebo, subjects supplementing their customary drug regimen for three months with the experimental drug--ORM-12741--scored more highly on two measures of memory.

As baby boomers enter their golden years, the number of people afflicted with Alzheimer's disease is expected to reach 13.8 million by 2050 - millions more than previously anticipated, according to a new study in the journal Neurology. If researchers can't find a way to reduce the prevalence of the brain disease, the cost to care for all of these patients could top $1 trillion a year, experts say. Alzheimer's is a progressive brain disease that damages patients' memory and cognitive skills, ultimately leaving them unable to care for themselves.

Seth Rogen, star of such comedies as "Knocked Up," talked to CNN on Tuesday about a very serious issue: Alzheimer's disease. Rogen, who called the disease "brutal," said his fiancee's mother has been battling it for years. He talked about the emotional toll it takes on families. Families, especially spouses who have to watch as their loved one's memories -- including shared memories -- deteriorate, can suffer psychologically. But Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia can take a physiological toll on families as well, studies say; one published last year in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society showed that the spouses of patients with dementia have six times the risk of developing dementia themselves.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" he asked me. He was about 84 years old and interested in a date. Sitting before him with my young son on my lap, I gave him the bad news: "No, but I have a husband and two kids. And I am your daughter, Dad." My father's confusion was the consequence of his battle with Alzheimer's disease. One day he recognized me, the next, maybe not. Though my brain could process that, my heart could not. No matter how realistic I tried to be about my father's decline and our awkward exchanges, I found it impossible to accept that he really didn't know me. Admitting to myself that we had lost our father-daughter connection even though he would be physically in my life for years to come was playing tricks with my own, still-intact brain.

Beta blockers, a venerable class of blood pressure drugs that has fallen from favor in recent years, may help protect the aging brain against changes linked to Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia that rob memory and mental function, new research indicates. In autopsies on the brains of 774 men after their deaths, scientists found that those who took beta blockers to help control hypertension had fewer of the brain lesions and less of the brain shrinkage seen in Alzheimer's than men who took other types of blood pressure medications and those who left the condition untreated.

Director Baz Luhrmann already tipped his hand in the trailer for his upcoming adaptation of "The Great Gatbsy. " Among the songs heard was the Jay-Z-led track "No Church in the Wild," his 2011 collaboration with Kanye West. The use married an examination of the empty, ostentatious wealth of the '20s with an examination of the empty, ostentatious wealth of today. This week, it came to light that "The Great Gatsby" could feature original Jay-Z works . The news was spread by the Bullitts, the musical designation for producer/musician Jeymes Samuel.