Alzheimer's disease

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Alzheimer's disease

Please Help Support Alzheimer's Research Today!
Your Alzheimer's donation will help billions live without it. Donate online now
 

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Alzheimer's disease

Please Help Support Alzheimer's Research Today!
Your Alzheimer's donation will help billions live without it. Donate online now
 

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Posted YVN

Alzheimer's disease

Please Help Support Alzheimer's Research Today!
Your Alzheimer's donation will help billions live without it. Donate online now
 

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Alzheimer's disease

Please Help Support Alzheimer's Research Today!
Your Alzheimer's donation will help billions live without it. Donate online now
 

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A new approach to the early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease

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Data published in the June issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease demonstrated that minimally-invasive biospectroscopy was able to identify changes in oxidative stress (OS) levels in blood plasma, which may prove to be a useful biomarker in the early detection of Alzheimer's disease. There is currently no accepted laboratory test for diagnosing Alzheimer's disease.

Researchers at McGill University and the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research (LDI) at the Jewish General Hospital (Montreal, Canada), have shown that near-infrared (NIR) biospectroscopy can identify a chemical signature, or biomarker, in blood that distinguishes Alzheimer's disease from normal aging and possibly other neurodegenerative conditions. Diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease is currently based solely on a patient's medical history and neurological examination, is labor-intensive and expensive, and often inconclusive in early stages of the illness. The availability of a biologic marker that reliably differentiates Alzheimer's disease from normal aging and other dementing conditions would represent a major achievement in the management of this common neurodegenerative disorder.

"There is an urgent need for an accurate diagnostic test to aid in the early diagnosis and management of Alzheimer's disease," said Hyman M. Schipper, MD, PhD, FRCPC, lead author of the study and Professor of Neurology and Medicine at McGill University. Dr. Schipper is also Founding Director of the Centre for Neurotranslational Research and a member of the Bloomfield Centre for Research in Aging at the LDI. "Our observations give us hope that biospectroscopy will offer a new approach to the early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders." Dr. Schipper is a noted expert in brain aging and neurodegeneration. Dr. David Burns of the Department of Chemistry at McGill University, an experienced biospectroscopist, was a co-investigator of the study.

In this study, an NIR biospectroscopy analysis was conducted on blood plasma samples from a total of 63 subjects, 19 with Alzheimer's disease, 27 with mild cognitive impairment (a frequent indication of Alzheimer's disease) and 17 normal elderly controls, to measure the degree of oxidative stress in plasma. OS is caused by a chemical imbalance that can damage critical components of cells and biofluids, including proteins, lipids and DNA. OS is known to be involved in many neurological diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

In differentiating Alzheimer's disease patients from the normal elderly control group, NIR achieved a sensitivity of 80% and specificity of 77%. Fifteen and twelve patients with mild cognitive impairment were classified with the normal elderly control group and Alzheimer's disease groups, respectively.

"These results demonstrate the potential for NIR biospectroscopy to differentiate mild, and possibly pre-clinical, Alzheimer's disease from normal aging with high accuracy," Dr. Schipper added. "We are very encouraged by these data and look forward to testing this potential diagnostic tool in larger-scale studies." "Near-Infrared Spectroscopy of Blood Plasma for Diagnosis of Sporadic Alzheimer Disease," was published in Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, 17:2 (June 2009).

Near-infrared spectroscopy is commonly used in medical diagnostics, food and agrochemical quality control, as well as combustion research. This technology has been licensed to Molecular Biometrics, Inc., a metabolomics company specializing in the development of minimally-invasive biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and assisted reproduction. ...http://www.newschannel5.com

Europe to get omega-3 food content claim

A draft amendment to the 2006 nutrition and health claims regulation will see omega-3 content claims permitted across the European Union for the first time, possibly by year’s end. ...http://www.nutraingredients.com

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21 чэрвеня, у дзень летняга сонцастаяння, пачынаецца астранамiчнае лета

Гэта самы доўгi дзень у годзе, ён будзе працягвацца 17 гадзiн. Але ўжо ў блiжэйшы аўторак ён стане карацейшым на хвiлiну. З панядзелка i сiноптыкi абя ДАЛЕЙ Posted YVN

Long-term caffeine consumption and delay of Alzheimer's disease

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Coffee: good or bad? Studies on the effects of caffeine have pointed every which way. But evidence is growing that caffeine may reduce certain disease risks in middle-aged and older adults. And at the least, drinking two cups of coffee per day has not been shown to be harmful for most people.

Animal studies have yielded compelling evidence of caffeine's benefits. Now human studies suggest that caffeine may help significantly to prevent or slow the progression of heart disease, oral cancers, Parkinson's disease and dementia. More studies are still needed to confirm the findings, though. Coffee is often used to study the effects of caffeine because it is the most common source of it. Caffeine can be found in tea, some soft drinks, chocolate and even prescription and over-the-counter medications. The most promising data show a strong link between drinking caffeinated coffee and prevention of these diseases:

Heart disease

Researchers followed 1,354 people over age 65 with normal or only slightly high blood pressure. After 10 years, those who drank at least one cup of caffeinated coffee per day had a 43 percent lower risk of dying from coronary heart disease than those who didn't drink coffee. Coffee drinkers also had fewer heart valve problems. Those in the study who drank decaffeinated coffee did not have the same lower incidence of heart disease. So, researchers concluded that caffeine had the protective effect.

Alzheimer's disease and dementia

Various studies have linked long-term caffeine consumption to a 30 percent to 64 percent reduction or delay of Alzheimer's disease. Most recently, a Finnish study followed 1,409 middle-aged people for 21 years. Those who drank three to five cups of caffeinated coffee daily were: 65 to 70 percent less likely to have dementia than those who drank little or no coffee/62 to 64 percent less likely to have Alzheimer's disease than those who drank little or no coffee. In this study, caffeinated tea did not seem to yield the same benefits. This may be because there is less caffeine in tea or because the benefit is from something else in the coffee other than caffeine. Another theory is that coffee drinkers also have a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, which is linked to a higher risk of dementia. Experts are cautious about these results, though. It is hard to measure exactly how much caffeine was consumed, and also hard to diagnose Alzheimer's in many cases.

Cancers of the mouth and throat

A study of 38,000 people (ages 40 to 64) with no history of cancer found that coffee significantly reduced their risk of several oral cancers. People who drank a cup or more a day of caffeinated coffee over 13 years were half as likely to develop cancers of the mouth, pharynx or esophagus. Even smokers and heavy alcohol drinkers - who have a higher risk for oral cancer - cut their risks with caffeine. Researchers noted, though, that giving up smoking and alcohol excess are still the best ways to lower the risk of getting oral cancers.

Before you get perking

No one is saying that we should all start chugging coffee to ward off disease. More and larger studies are needed to verify all these benefits. Every cuppa joe is rich in antioxidants and other chemicals, too. So it is possible that some of the observed benefits are not from the caffeine. Also, talk to your doctor about how much coffee may or may not be good for you. Caffeine is not advised for people who take certain medications, are pregnant or have conditions such as heart arrhythmia. Moderation is always the rule, too. Too much caffeine can cause anxiety, jitters, insomnia, headaches and stomach upset. ...http://www.newschannel5.com

Antioxidants plus exercise may boost bones in older women

A combination of antioxidant supplements and resistance training may protect against bone loss in postmenopausal women, suggests a new study from Canada. ...http://www.nutraingredients.com

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Дзявочыя сакрэты

Для кожнай з нас вялiкае значэнне мае iмя. Яно — вербальная выява чалавечай асобы, частка нас самiх. Аднак навакольныя могуць успрымаць мелодыку нашаг ДАЛЕЙ Posted YVN

The trepanation could be an effective treatment for Alzheimer's

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IN THE early 1960s, a young Russian neurophysiologist called Yuri Moskalenko travelled from the Soviet Union to the UK on a Royal Society exchange programme. During his stay, he co-authored a paper published in Nature. "Variation in blood volume and oxygen availability in the human brain" may not sound subversive, but it was the start of a radical idea.

Decades later, having worked in Soviet Russia and become president of the Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry at the Russian Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg, Moskalenko is back in the UK. Now collaborating with researchers at the Beckley Foundation in Oxford, his work is bearing fruit.

And strange fruit it is. With funding from the foundation, he is exploring the idea that people with Alzheimer's disease could be treated by drilling a hole in their skull. In fact, he is so convinced of the benefits of trepanation that he claims it may help anyone from their mid-40s onwards to slow or even reverse the process of age-related cognitive decline. Can he be serious?

For thousands of years, trepanation has been performed for quasi-medical reasons such as releasing evil spirits that were believed to cause schizophrenia or migraine. Today it is used to prevent brain injury by relieving intracranial pressure, particularly after accidents involving head trauma.

In the popular imagination, though, it is considered crude, if not downright barbaric. Yet such is the desperation for effective treatments for dementia that drilling a hole in the skull is not even the strangest game in town (see "Desperate measures to treat dementia").

The problem is huge and growing. Alzheimer's, the most common form of dementia, affects 700,000 people in the UK and nearly 5 million in the US. In addition, 1 in 5 Americans over the age of 75 have mild cognitive impairment, which often leads to Alzheimer's. As people live longer, the numbers seem certain to grow. Yet we have few ideas about what causes dementia and even fewer about how to treat it. Most patients get a mixture of drugs and occupational therapy, which at best stalls the apparent progression of their illness by masking its symptoms.

The causes of dementia are many and poorly understood, but there is growing evidence that one factor is the flow of blood within the brain. As we age, cerebral blood flow decreases, and the earlier this happens the more likely someone is to develop early onset dementia. It remains unclear, however, whether declining cerebral blood flow is the cause, or an incidental effect of a more fundamental change. Moskalenko's research indicates that cerebral blood flow is more closely correlated with age than with levels of dementia, so he decided to delve more deeply.

The brain's buffer

As well as delivering oxygen to the brain, cerebral blood flow has another vital role: the circulation and production of cerebrospinal fluid. This clear liquid surrounds the brain, carrying the nutrients that feed it and removing the waste it produces, including the tau and beta-amyloid proteins that have been implicated in the formation of plaques found in the brains of people with Alzheimer's (Cerebrospinal Fluid Research, vol 5, p 10).

How blood flow influences cerebrospinal fluid flow can be gauged from something called "cranial compliance", a measure of the elasticity of the brain's vascular system. "The cranium is a bony cavity of fixed volume, with the brain taking up most of the space," says Robin Kennett, a neurophysiologist from the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals in the UK. "Every time the heart beats and sends blood into the cranium, something else has to come out to prevent the pressure rising to levels that would damage the brain." So, as fresh blood flows into the brain's blood vessels, cerebrospinal fluid flows out into the space around the spinal cord through a hole in the base of the skull called the foramen magnum.

As we age, the proteins in the brain harden, preventing this system from working as it should. As a result, the flow of both blood and cerebrospinal fluid is reduced, impairing the delivery of oxygen and nutrients as well as the removal of waste. Moskalenko's research suggests that this normally begins between the ages of 40 and 50. Moreover, in a study of 42 elderly people with dementia, he found that the severity of their cognitive disorder was strongly correlated with cranial compliance: those with the severest dementia had the lowest compliance (International Journal of Psychophysiology, vol 69, p 307). "Cranial compliance is a significant component of the origin of certain cases of brain pathology," he says.

This view gets qualified agreement from Conrad Johanson, a clinical neuroscientist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Although the link between low compliance and dementia has yet to be comprehensively shown, he says, "there's a gestalt that it's broadly true".

So where does trepanation come into all this? "A hole made in the bony cavity would act as a pressure-release valve," says Kennett, and this would alter the flow of fluids around the brain. This is exactly what Moskalenko observed when he carried out one of the first neurophysiological studies on trepanation.

Moskalenko studied 15 people who had undergone the procedure following head injuries. He found that their cranial compliance was around 20 per cent higher than the average for their age. Based on this, he calculates that a 4-square-centimetre hole increases cerebral blood flow by between 8 and 10 per cent, which is equivalent to 0.8 millilitres more blood per heartbeat (Human Physiology, vol 34, p 299). This, he says, shows that trepanation could be an effective treatment for Alzheimer's, and he even goes so far as to suggest that it might provide a "significant" improvement in the mental functions of anyone from their mid-40s, when cranial compliance starts to decline.

A 4-square-centimetre hole increases cerebral blood flow by between 8 and 10 per cent

Spinal taps

Surprisingly, his most vociferous critics do not challenge his support for trepanation. Instead they question his ideas about how it works. Gerald Silverberg at the Stanford School of Medicine in California points out that drilling a hole in the skull may temporarily drain the cranial cavity of cerebrospinal fluid together with any toxins that may have accumulated in it, effectively flushing out the system. "Metabolite clearance, or the lack of it, is felt to be an important factor in the development of age-related dementias," he says. A similar intervention, known as a lumbar shunt or "spinal tap", in which a needle is inserted into the spinal column to remove cerebrospinal fluid, can dramatically improve the cognitive performance of people who undergo the procedure, Silverberg says. Spinal taps are normally used as a treatment for hydrocephalus - water on the brain - but Silverberg is now trying it out on people with Alzheimer's, and early studies suggest it helps (Neurology, vol 59, p 1139).

Olivier Baledent, a neurophysiologist based at the University Hospital of Amiens, France, also questions Moskalenko's focus on cranial compliance (Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism, vol 27, p 1563). Like Silverberg, he believes cerebrospinal fluid itself is key. Baledent's unpublished research shows that in people with mild cognitive impairment, there is reduced activity in a part of the brain called the choroid plexus, where cerebrospinal fluid is formed. He suspects this results in impaired fluid formation and reabsorption, leading to a build-up of toxins, and that a spinal tap may be able to stop or decrease dementia by improving fluid turnover. Trepanation could work in a similar way.

So will dementia patients and their families ever accept trepanation as a treatment for the condition? Johanson, who sees trepanation as no more alarming than a spinal tap, admits that it is always going to be a hard sell. "People think it's witchcraft when you drill a hole in the skull and patients are improving."

It is always going to be a hard sell - people think it's witchcraft when you drill a hole in the skull and patients start improving

Harriet Millward, deputy chief executive of UK-based charity Alzheimer's Research Trust, is keeping an open mind. "The procedure has been understudied so far and, until further research has been undertaken, the possibility of beneficial effects remains open," she says. David Smith, a neuropharmacologist and head of the Oxford Project to Investigate Memory and Ageing, is even more receptive. "I think the observations look pretty robust," he says. In the absence of drug treatments for dementia, "these rather drastic surgical ones are worth considering", he says.

Desperate measures to treat dementia

"The laser helmet"

As worn by sci-fi and fantasy author Terry Pratchett, who was diagnosed with posterior cortical atrophy, a rare type of Alzheimer's, in 2007. Inventor Gordon Dougal, director of British company Restorelite, says the device uses light at a wavelength of 1072 nanometres to penetrate the skull and repair brain cells damaged by the ageing processes.

Omental transposition

Not for the faint-hearted. It entails cutting into the omentum, a blood-vessel-rich part of the lower abdominal cavity, and stretching a strip of this tissue so that it can be "tunnelled" under the skin and laid directly onto the brain. The operation's pioneer, Harry Goldsmith from the University of Nevada, believes this increases cerebral blood flow, improving neuronal activity.

Cranial osteopathy

Manipulating the skull by hand. The practice controversially assumes that adult skull plates are not fused, but move a fraction. Mark Rosen, president of The Cranial Academy in Indianapolis, Indiana, says there is evidence that cranial osteopathy increases intracranial blood flow.

Standing on your head

Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD, swore by it. So do many devotees of yoga. Studies have shown that some yoga breathing techniques can significantly increase cerebral blood flow. Whether hanging upside down for 15 minutes a day can stave off dementia is another matter. ...http://www.newscientist.com

Could vinegar be natural fat fighter?

Ordinary vinegar – acetic acid – may prevent the build up of fat, and therefore weight gain, according to results of a study with mice from Japan. ...http://www.nutraingredients.com

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65 гадоў з дня трагедыi Дальвы

19 чэрвеня 1944 года фашысты знiшчылi, сцерлi з твару зямлi вёску Дальва. Зажыва спалiлi 44 яе жыхароў: 29 дзяцей, 13 жанчын, 2 мужчын. Вёска загiнула ДАЛЕЙ Posted YVN