Bad cat for AD

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Oscar, a two year old cat that lives at a nursing home in Providence, Rhode Island in the New England region of the United States, appears to know when residents at the home are approaching their final hours because he curls up next to them.

The story of Oscar, the hospice cat who conducts daily rounds like a feline version of a hospital consultant and appears to be able to predict when patients are going to die, is told in an essay about a day in his life by one of the doctors, David Dosa, in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dosa said that Oscar has been accurate in 25 cases so far. He sits with patients at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, when they are in their last four hours of life. "He doesn't make many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die," said Dosa in an interview with the Associated Press news agency. Dosa is professor of medicine at Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University, Rhode Island, and a geriatric consultant at the nursing home. Dosa said that relatives of the dying patients "take solace" from this curious phenomenon. The companionship that Oscar provides is appreciated, he said.

Oscar was adopted by the medical staff as a kitten and his home ever since has been on the third floor of the nursing home, with the dementia patients. Soon, he was making his own rounds, sniffing patients and looking them over, then he would curl up beside a patient who died a few hours later. Staff at the hospital trust Oscar's instinct so much that they call the patient's relatives to let them know it's likely their loved one will be passing away soon.

Dosa says Oscar is an "aloof" cat who is not normally friendly towards people, he describes him as hissing at a patient when she walks past. But he seems to take his work very seriously, and when he settles next to a patient who is dying, he purrs and nuzzles them. Sometimes, when he is ejected from his vigil beside a dying patient (some families don't like him there), he paces and meows outside the room.

Cat experts say that cats can sense illness, especially in their owners or other animals. They can also sense changes in the weather, and their ability to sense impending earthquakes is well known. According to a report in the Washington Post yesterday, another doctor at the home, Joan Teno who is also of Brown University and experienced at treating terminally ill patients, said that Oscar can predict who is going to die more accurately than the staff.

She became convinced of Oscar's "skill" while she was treating a patient who had stopped eating, was breathing erratically and her legs had started to look blue. She thought the patient was near death. But although Oscar called in to see her, he did not stay in the room. However, as Teno later found out, this was 10 hours before the patient actually died, and the nurses told her that Oscar came back to sit with the dying patient 2 hours before she finally passed away. This was Oscar's 13th accurate prediction.

Speculating on the accuracy of Oscar's predictions, Teno said she wondered if he smells something, or he notices subtle changes in the behaviour of the nurses while they attend the patients. There is a commendation wall plaque at the nursing home, awarded to Oscar by a local hospice agency. The plaque reads: "For his compassionate hospice care, this plaque is awarded to Oscar the Cat".

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Effectively stopped destroying brain cells of AD

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Scientists from St. Andrews University, Scotland, say they have developed a compound that has effectively stopped the disease from destroying brain cells. They say that the compound also seems to improve damaged memory and cognitive ability.

Kirsty Muirhead, a PhD student tries to design man-made compounds that stop ABAD (Amyloid Beta Alcohol Dehydrogenase), an enzyme, from triggering several biochemical reactions that result in the destruction of brain cells. Muirhead's research, says the Alzheimer's Research Trust, may bring us one step closer to developing an effective Alzheimer's therapy.

In a healthy person, ABAD helps produce energy in the brain. However, in Alzheimer's patients, a protein called amyloid beta binds to it and triggers damaging biochemical reactions that destroy brain cells. Dr. Gunn-Moore and his team have been able to identify a compound that stops ABAD from sticking to amyloid beta in an animal model of Alzheimer's disease. Muirhead's aim is to find other compounds which might stop amyloid beta from sticking to ABAD and test how effective they are. Part of the research will also involve checking for safety and finding the inhibitor with the best potential for future therapy for humans.

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Bisdemethoxycurcumin may correct immune defects of AD patients

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Scientists from University of California and Human BioMolecular Research Institute, San Diego have tested a hypothesis that the natural product curcuminoids, which has epidemiologic and experimental rationale for use in AD, may improve the innate immune system and increase amyloid- (A) clearance from the brain of patients with sporadic Alzheimer's disease (AD).
Macrophages of a majority of AD patients do not transport A into endosomes and lysosomes, and AD monocytes do not efficiently clear A from the sections of AD brain, although they phagocytize bacteria. In contrast, macrophages of normal subjects transport A to endosomes and lysosomes, and monocytes of these subjects clear A in AD brain sections. Upon A stimulation, mononuclear cells of normal subjects up-regulate the transcription of -1,4-mannosyl-glycoprotein 4--N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase (MGAT3) (P < class="verdana10666666">

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A third omega-3 enhanced spread is being planned by UK's Dairy Crest - a move which rubber stamps the increasing trend for food companies to take advantage of the health benefits of the fish oil.

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Misfolded proteins play a key role in Alzheimer's disease

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Rice University physicists have unveiled an innovative way of finding out how proteins get their shape based on how they unfold when pulled apart. The experimental method could be of widespread use in the field of protein folding science, which has grown dramatically in the past decade, due in part to the discovery that misfolded proteins play a key role in diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

If DNA is the blueprint for life, then proteins are the machines built from those blueprints. All living cells produce proteins by stringing together strands of amino acids based on the sequences of their DNA. Proteins are created in linear chains, like strands of pearls, with each amino acid representing a bead on the strand. However, knowing the order of the amino acids in the strand gives no clue about how a protein functions. That's because every protein folds into a three-dimensional shape within about one second of being made, and it is this shape that dictates the protein's function.

At the halfway point between it's folded and unfolded state, a protein is like a rollercoaster balanced at the crest of the highest hill on the track. Like the rollercoaster, the protein requires a certain amount of energy to make it over the hill and wind its course to a final resting place -- its folded state. If it lacks the energy to clear the hill, it will slide back into a partially folded or misfolded state.

Scientists conducted experiments on a protein named Titin. The Titin piece, dubbed I27, contains 89 amino acids. Harris suspended thousands of intact, folded I27s in a dilute saline solution and let the solution sit long enough for the proteins to become stuck to the bottom of the sample dish. The needle from an atomic force microscope (AFM) was repeatedly dipped into the solution. The tip of the AFM operates much like a phonograph needle. The AFM needle is on the end of a cantilever arm that bobs up and down over the sample. The tip of the AFM needle is just a few atoms wide. Bobbing down, it randomly grabbed I27s that were pulled into their string-like, unfolded shape as the needle rose.

Harris measured the force exerted on the cantilever arm each time an I27 was unfolded. To get the energy maps, he wrote software incorporating a statistical mechanics equation called the "Jarzynski equality." The equation related the non-equilibrium energy from the unfolding events to the equilibrium profiles along the trajectory from the folded to the unfolded state. Kiang said the software, and the use of the Jarzynski equality, makes the new method unique and useful.

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Exelon patch - an effective Alzheimer's disease medication

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A patch that delivers Exelon® (rivastigmine transdermal), an effective Alzheimer's disease medication - the first time this technology has been applied to treat the disease in the European Union.

"Exelon patch offers unique therapeutic benefits because it maintains steady drug levels in the bloodstream, improves tolerability and allows a higher proportion of patients to receive therapeutic doses of medication. Coupled with the clear benefits for caregivers in terms of ease of administration, it represents a significant advance in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. We look forward to the time when this important new therapy will be available throughout the EU" said Alexander Kurz, MD, Professor of Psychiatry and Head of the Centre for Cognitive Disorders at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

A key attribute of Exelon patch is a sharp reduction in gastrointestinal side effects commonly seen with the oral forms of this class of drugs called cholinesterase inhibitors. In a clinical trial these side effects were greatly reduced, with three times fewer reports of nausea and vomiting than with the capsule form of the drug.

The results from the international IDEAL (Investigation of Transdermal Exelon in ALzheimer's disease) trial, which showed that patients receiving the Exelon patch demonstrated improved memory, overall functioning, and ability to perform everyday activities than those taking placebo. Exelon is the only cholinesterase inhibitor to be approved for both mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease dementia in both Europe and the US. The US Food and Drug Administration approved Exelon®Patch (rivastigmine transdermal system) on July 6 for the treatment of both mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease dementia.

Alzheimer's disease affects one in 10 people over the age of 65, making it the most common form of dementia and the third leading cause of death in this age group behind cardiovascular disease and cancer. The global direct costs of dementia were estimated at USD156 billion in 2003.

Mango peel extract shows functional food potential
Mango peel extract, a by-product of the mango processing industry, offers a rich and inexpensive source of antioxidants for use in nutraceuticals and functional foods, says new research from India.

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