Memory Loss

As more and more Americans take cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins, Dr. Beatrice A. Golomb has carved out a niche investigating a less-publicized aspect of these cardiac wonder drugs: patients' complaints of memory loss, irritability and nerve and muscle pain. Golomb, an assistant professor of medicine at UC San Diego, also leads a five-year, $5-million study funded by the National Institutes of Health.

I don't get annoyed anymore when I can't remember where I put the car keys. This is because I usually have more important matters on my mind. Like where I put the car. No, the old memory isn't what it used to be. There was a time when I could remember names, faces, details, batting orders, volumes of useless facts. Now, I can't remember a loaf of bread.

In its early stages, Alzheimer's disease can be easily confused with other disorders. Although a person may have several symptoms, there could be other explanations, including strokes, depression, severe stress and thyroid disease. Only a doctor can make a diagnosis.

Thanks for printing "The Man Who Remembered Nothing" (by Gordon Steel, as told to Dana Harris, Feb. 3). It is a touching story and beautifully written. Surely we can all learn from Steel's determination to overcome persistent memory loss and develop a career in a field where memory is everything--and from the kind and useful assistance of his friend Jerry Edelstein and the loyal support of his family. Vanda Krefft Santa Monica

The popular club drug Ecstasy causes temporary injury to brain cells, but the result is long-term damage to memory, Dutch researchers said Sunday. Memory tests and brain scans performed on 22 subjects who had recently used Ecstasy revealed they suffered memory deficiencies and changes in certain brain cells. The scans showed the damage was most pronounced on cortical neurons linked to memory function.

A mystery jogger who walked into a Newport Beach hospital suffering from amnesia--and no memory of his name--recovered by himself and was released, a hospital spokeswoman said Sunday. Brett Backus, of Orlando, Fla., had walked into Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian on Wednesday about 6:30 a.m. garbed in gray jogging pants and sneakers. He told hospital staff he did not know who he was or where he lived.

In preparation for the roll-out of its OS X operating system, Apple Computer Inc. put out a "firmware" upgrade last month, designed to tinker with the computer's hardware settings. But many Mac users who applied the update found that their computers no longer could see all of the RAM their systems had on board. Apple said the firmware does disable third-party memory that doesn't meet the company's specifications, arguing that out-of-spec memory is largely responsible for system crashes.

After creeping corpulence, perhaps the most common complaint of aging is what the experts politely call "benign" memory loss, and the rest of us, less politely, sometimes call CRS, for Can't Remember (you know what).

In response to "Most Faux Sugars Sweeten Foods Safely" (Dec. 6): The most recent research from Spain shows that aspartame (NutraSweet) ingestion leads to formaldehyde accumulation in organs and tissue. Formaldehyde has been proved to cause gradual damage to the nervous and immune systems and has been shown to cause irreversible genetic damage. Extremely large numbers of toxicity reactions to aspartame have been reported. Symptoms include seizures, headaches, memory loss, tremors, convulsions, vision loss, nausea, dizziness, confusion, depression, irritability, anxiety attacks, personality changes, heart palpitations, skin diseases, loss of blood sugar control, arthritic symptoms and weight gain.