Alzheimer S Disease

The Grammy Award-winning singer Glen Campbell announced this week that he is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. And then he said he'd be going on the road for a farewell tour. It's not unusual for a public figure to reveal a diagnosis of the insidious disease. Former President Reagan told the world of his battle with Alzheimer's in a poignant letter in 1994. Actor Charlton Heston disclosed, via a taped statement, that he was suffering from symptoms similar to those of Alzheimer's.

Asserting "we are at an exceptional moment" in the hunt for an Alzheimer'sdiseasetreatment, National Institutes of Health director Dr. Francis Collins on Tuesday promised a raft of new research aimed at stopping and reversing the memory-robbing disorder by the year 2025. In unveiling a first-ever "national strategy" on Alzheimer's disease, Collins launched several new projects and clinical trials--including a whole-genome sequencing effort to identify genes that confer vulnerability to--or protection against-- Alzheimer's, and a trial to explore whether an inhaled form of insulin will slow progression of the disease.

The products: Humans have long believed in an almost magical connection between strong flavors and good health. The burn from the hot pepper? It must be energizing the body. The pungent tang of a raw oyster? It must be energizing a very particular part of the body. And the zingy sweetness of an Indian curry? For centuries, people in India have believed that the spice turmeric can ease digestive distress and arthritis. In recent years, scientists have taken an intense interest in curcumin, a bright-yellow compound in turmeric that seems to fight inflammation -- in test tubes and lab rodents, at least.

No one wants to hear that he or she has Alzheimer's disease. But if the beta-amyloid plaques that are the disorder's key physical hallmark could be detected before memory loss and cognitive troubles were evident to all, would you want to know? And since no treatment currently works to stem the inexorable progress ofAlzheimer's, who would pay for a costly test to detect it early -- and why? Those questions are no longer hypothetical. Last week, the FDA approved an agent called Florbetapir F 18 injection (to be marketed as Amyvid)

If you want to live longer -- avoid heart disease, Alzheimer's disease and cancer -- then pick and choose your foods with care to quiet down parts of your immune system. That's the principle promoted by the founders and followers of anti-inflammatory diets, designed to reduce chronic inflammation in the body. Dozens of books filled with diets and recipes have flooded the market in the last few years, including popular ones by dermatologist Dr. Nicholas Perricone and Zone Diet creator Barry Sears.

Michael Grace will never forget the day he brought his mother, Louise Grace, home from the hospital, and found she could only hold a thought for a few seconds at a time. "It is a panic situation," Grace said. "It's like waking up in the morning with both your arms cut off. What do you do? You think, 'I'll telephone for help,' then you realize you can't reach a phone. That's what it's like--there is no help at all."

Is there really a connection between drinking juices out of aluminum cans and developing Alzheimer's disease? It is unlikely that drinking fruit or vegetable juice from aluminum cans would increase the risk of Alzheimer's. Aluminum cans are coated with a plastic lining to prevent corrosion and protect juice from acquiring a metallic flavor. These liners are not completely innocuous, we fear. Many of them contain bisphenol A (BPA), a compound that mimics estrogen. A December analysis in Consumer Reports notes that some juice and canned foods contain measurable amounts of BPA. :: Is there an exercise that helps relieve vertigo?

The decision by health experts to separate Alzheimer's disease from age-related dementia and deem it potentially curable  "opened a Pandora's box" and may have misdirected research for decades, a team of scientists suggests in a new analysis of the field. Despite great efforts to find treatments to stop or slow progression of the disease, there are only a few medications for Alzheimer's disease and they only help mitigate symptoms, not the disease process. In their paper, published in the December issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease , researchers from the University of South Florida propose that senile dementia, which includes Alzheimer's, is not a distinct disease but can be explained by simple aging along with other risk factors.

It's time to update the way Alzheimer's disease and early stages of the illness are diagnosed, according to experts on the disease. Diagnostic criteria for the disease have not been updated since 1984. Preliminary information on new diagnostic criteria was released Tuesday at a meeting of the Alzheimer's Assn. International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease in Honolulu. The proposed new criteria, which are still under study, would rely on advances in detecting biomarkers for the disease, such as substances found in spinal fluid or appearing on sophisticated brain imaging scans conducted with PET or MRI. Effort is expected to be placed on diagnosing early stages of the disease as soon as possible so that patients can participate in studies to slow the progression or prevent further damage.

I have an interest in treatments for Alzheimer's disease and at the present time in two promising treatments before the Food and Drug Administration. In large part I wish to unsully my reputation ("Study Finds Drug Helps Some Alzheimer's Patients," Nov. 11). I believe that if tacrine (THA or Cognex) and a sister drug, mentane (HP-029), are released by FDA, that someone will actually go back to our original paper and replicate our study. None of the papers published since our study have actually repeated what we did. From the outset, the other neuroscientists have strived to "improve" upon our study.

In an experiment likely to raise new hopes for those with memory-robbing diseases such as Alzheimer's, researchers have found that sending an electrical jolt to a part of the brain that plays a key role in memory improved people's ability to learn -- and remember -- their way across an unfamiliar landscape. The study, conducted at UCLA and published in Thursday's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, was small and highly preliminary, involving just seven patients with epilepsy.

There is no cure for Alzheimer's disease, and as far as treatment goes, the best doctors can do (for now) is try to slow its progression. Identifying people in the earliest stages of the disease - even before any symptoms appear - would thus be very useful. But how? By using MRI scans to measure the thickness of specific parts of the brain, that's how. A new study from the journal Neurology reports that an “AD signature” can predict which people with normal brain function are most likely to suffer cognitive decline in the relatively near future.

Pretty much everyone who wanders into Pat Summitt's office or visits her basketball practice these days has learned to fear the iPad. The coach keeps her tablet filled with brain-wrenching games. Crossword puzzles and Sudoku. Math quizzes and memory tests. "When people come by," said Tyler, her son, "she gets them to sit down and try one of those things. " It was seven months ago that doctors diagnosed Summitt with early-onset dementia, Alzheimer's type, an incurable brain disease that affects memory, thinking and behavior.

There's one thing that all Alzheimer's researchers agree on: The mind-robbing illness is heartbreaking. But after three decades of study that have produced neither cure nor medications that significantly slow its progress, some researchers are asking: What if it's not a disease with a cure? What if it's just an unfortunate but inevitable part of aging, along with wrinkly skin, osteoporosis and heart disease? In a study in the December issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, a research group led by Dr. Ming Chen at the University of South Florida suggests that "tremendous social pressures" have pushed scientists to target Alzheimer's as a curable disease.

A concert cellist whose memory was virtually wiped out by a brain infection may no longer remember the names of the composers whose work he once played before admiring audiences. But he can remember and recognize virtually every note of their compositions, and even more remarkably, can learn and commit to memory new pieces of music he did not know before a raging case of herpes encephalitis robbed him of his ability to recognize most of his family, recall details of his homeland or remember details of his own life before his illness.

The decision by health experts to separate Alzheimer's disease from age-related dementia and deem it potentially curable  "opened a Pandora's box" and may have misdirected research for decades, a team of scientists suggests in a new analysis of the field. Despite great efforts to find treatments to stop or slow progression of the disease, there are only a few medications for Alzheimer's disease and they only help mitigate symptoms, not the disease process. In their paper, published in the December issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease , researchers from the University of South Florida propose that senile dementia, which includes Alzheimer's, is not a distinct disease but can be explained by simple aging along with other risk factors.

To the long list of complications that should make you want to avoid diabetes, Japanese researchers have added this: People with diabetes are more than twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's disease and also have an increased risk of developing some kind of dementia. Diabetes, of course, is a metabolic disorder in which the body can't use insulin properly, causing a dangerous buildup of blood sugar (glucose). Nearly 11% of American adults have it, according to the National Institutes of Health . The disease can lead to complications including kidney failure, nerve damage, heart disease, stroke, bladder control problems and erectile dysfunction.

There was a cake with my mother's name spelled out in buttercream, small gifts and a song. The guests included 20 men and women suffering from Alzheimer's disease and dementia who lived in the secure wing of my mother's new home — a nicely appointed assisted living facility with art on the walls, gentle hands, crafts and music. After my mother started a fire in her hilltop wood-and-glass house, locked her caregiver out of the bathroom and began pushing dollar bills through the paper shredder, my brother and I surrendered to the concept of assisted living.