http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/alzheimersdisease/ en-us Thu, 3 Dec 2009 14:40:20 GMT Focus Forum 15 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2399291/posts Watertown, MA—Scientists at Boston Biomedical Research Institute (BBRI) and the University of Pennsylvania have found that combining two chemicals, one of which is the green tea component EGCG, can prevent and destroy a variety of protein structures known as amyloids. Amyloids are the primary culprits in fatal brain disorders such as Alzheimer's, Huntington's, and Parkinson's diseases. Their study, published in the current issue of Nature Chemical Biology (December 2009), may ultimately contribute to future therapies for these diseases. "These findings are significant because it is the first time a combination of specific chemicals has successfully destroyed diverse forms of amyloids... Boston Biomedical Research Institute http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2399291/posts#comment Thu, 3 Dec 2009 14:40:20 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2373143/posts Alzheimer's caused by cold sore virus? In a connection that sounds borderline preposterous, links have been accumulating between Alzheimer's disease and cold sores....Cold sores are caused by the herpes simplex virus type 1, a type that should not be confused with herpes symplex virus type 2 which is the cause of genital herpes. A growing body of research, suggests that the HSV-1 may also be responsible for the majority of Alzheimer's cases.... "There's clearly a very strong connection," says British researcher, Ruth Itzhaki, Ph.D., speaking one afternoon in her office at the University of Manchester, in northwestern England. A neurobiologist,... The Dallas Disability Examiner http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2373143/posts#comment Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:37:17 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2286772/posts Enlarge Caffeine treatment removed the beta amyloid plaques from the brains of the Alzheimer's mice. Credit: Photo courtesy of Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Center Coffee drinkers may have another reason to pour that extra cup. When aged mice bred to develop symptoms of Alzheimer's disease were given caffeine - the equivalent of five cups of coffee a day - their memory impairment was reversed, report University of South Florida researchers at the Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. Back-to-back studies published online today in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, show caffeine significantly decreased abnormal levels of the protein linked to... Physorg.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2286772/posts#comment Mon, 6 Jul 2009 21:01:05 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2306792/posts In experiments with lab mice especially bred to develop symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, University of South Florida (USF) researchers at the Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Center ADRC gave the aged animals the equivalent of the caffeine in five cups of coffee a day. The results? Their severe memory impairment was reversed. This study, along with other AD research by the same group of scientists, was just published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. Both studies show that caffeine significantly decreased abnormal levels of beta amyloid (the protein linked to AD) in both the brains and blood of lab rodents who... Natural News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2306792/posts#comment Mon, 3 Aug 2009 01:31:50 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2165849/posts STOCKHOLM — Middle-aged people who drink moderate amounts of coffee significantly reduce their risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, a study by Finnish and Swedish researchers showed Thursday. "Middle-aged people who drank between three and five cups of coffee a day lowered their risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer's disease by between 60 and 65 percent later in life," said lead researcher on the project, Miia Kivipelto, a professor at the University of Kuopio in Finland and at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. The study, which was also conducted in cooperation with the National Public Health Institute in Helsinki and which... AFP http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2165849/posts#comment Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:46:11 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2362868/posts A diagnostic compound that allows researchers to look into the brains of Alzheimer's patients will be used for the first time to gauge the effects of an experimental therapy for the disease. Called florbetaben, the diagnostic could also provide important insights into the role of beta amyloid, a protein that accumulates into plaques in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease and has been shown to be toxic to nerve cells. The compound is an 18F-radiolabelled tracer that binds specifically to deposits of beta amyloid, and can be measured using positron emission tomography (PET), a nuclear imaging technique which produces a three-dimensional image of... Chemistry World http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2362868/posts#comment Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:40:26 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2348561/posts You shouldn't stay up all night worrying about it, but a new study has found a connection between a lack of sleep and a biomolecule thought to be important in the development of Alzheimer's disease. In both humans and mice, levels of a peptide called amyloid-β rise during waking hours and decline during sleep, researchers have found. They also report that sleep-deprived mice are more prone to developing deposits of amyloid-β, called plaques, like those found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. Although far from proven, the finding suggests that sleep disorders could be a risk factor for Alzheimer's. On... ScienceNOW Daily News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2348561/posts#comment Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:26:22 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2256716/posts LAGUNA WOODS, Calif. — The ladies in the card room are playing bridge, and at their age the game is no hobby. It is a way of life, a daily comfort and challenge, the last communal campfire before all goes dark. “We play for blood,” says Ruth Cummins, 92, before taking a sip of Red Bull at a recent game. “It’s what keeps us going,” adds Georgia Scott, 99. “It’s where our closest friends are.” In recent years scientists have become intensely interested in what could be called a super memory club — the fewer than one in 200 of... times. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2256716/posts#comment Sat, 23 May 2009 03:06:24 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2271178/posts News From The American Chemical Society, May 13, 200919 May 2009    Advance in detecting melamine-adulterated food Researchers in Indiana are reporting an advance toward faster, more sensitive tests for detecting melamine, the substance that killed at least 6 children and sickened 300,000 children in China who drank milk and infant formula adulterated with the substance. The improved tests may ease global concerns about food safety, the researchers say. Their report is scheduled for the May 27 issue of ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a bi-weekly publication. In the new study, Lisa Mauer and colleagues note that tests... The American Chemical Society via Medical News Today http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2271178/posts#comment Sat, 13 Jun 2009 18:53:42 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2259631/posts Canadian scientists have been inspired by analytical chemistry to attack Alzheimer's disease from all sides. Chris Orvig from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and colleagues made multifunctional compounds to target amyloid plaque formation, a possible cause of Alzheimer's disease. Amyloid plaques are protein clusters with metal ions that accumulate between neurons in Alzheimer's patients' brains. Orvig designed his compounds to combat the protein misfolding and metal-peptide interactions involved in amyloid plaque production as well as the oxidative stress that occurs (a condition that damages cells, caused by excess free radicals). 'We aren't 100 per cent sure about the order... Royal Society of Chemistry http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2259631/posts#comment Thu, 28 May 2009 06:12:54 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2259617/posts UK and Dutch scientists have mimicked an ancient Chinese culinary technique of preserving eggs to study how proteins cause disease. Erika Eiser from the University of Cambridge and colleagues looked at how proteins in egg whites altered during this preservation process. The Chinese method involves wrapping raw eggs in an alkaline paste of lime, clay, salt, ash and tea and storing these so-called century eggs for several months. Eiser modified the method by incubating a boiled egg in a strong alkaline sodium hydroxide-salt solution for up to 26 days. Hard boiled egg whites become a transparent gel in an alkaline... Royal Society of Chemistry http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2259617/posts#comment Thu, 28 May 2009 05:35:49 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2196007/posts Non-infectious form of prion protein could cause brain degeneration. Prion proteins may react with amyloid-(beta) peptides inside the brain cells of Alzheimer's patients.Thomas Deerinck NCMIR/Science Photo Library Non-infectious prion proteins found in the brain may contribute to Alzheimer's disease, researchers have found. The surprising new results, reported this week in Nature1, show that normal prion proteins produced naturally in the brain interact with the amyloid-(beta) peptides that are hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. Blocking this interaction in preparations made from mouse brains halted some neurological defects caused by the accumulation of amyloid-(beta) peptide. It was previously thought that only infectious prion... Nature News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2196007/posts#comment Sat, 28 Feb 2009 05:42:29 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2174065/posts Did Grandma seem forgetful at the holiday parties last month? It could be time to put her on a diet. Sharply reducing calories improves memory in older adults, according to one of the first studies of dietary restriction and cognitive function in humans. Research on the benefits of an extremely low-calorie diet stretches back to the 1930s, when scientists found that rats lived up to twice as long when they nibbled less than control animals. Since then, some studies with rodents and nonhuman primates have shown that this spare diet, known as calorie restriction, improves some markers of diabetes and... ScienceNOW Daily News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2174065/posts#comment Thu, 29 Jan 2009 08:37:00 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2159911/posts Clioquinol inhibits action of the CLK1 aging gene, may alleviate Alzheimer'sRecent animal studies have shown that clioquinol – an 80-year old drug once used to treat diarrhea and other gastrointestinal disorders – can reverse the progression of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases. Scientists, however, had a variety of theories to attempt to explain how a single compound could have such similar effects on three unrelated neurodegenerative disorders. Researchers at McGill University have discovered a dramatic possible new answer: According to Dr. Siegfried Hekimi and colleagues at McGill's Department of Biology, clioquinol acts directly on a protein called CLK-1, often informally... McGill University http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2159911/posts#comment Tue, 6 Jan 2009 23:20:16 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2146182/posts Talk of the Nation, November 7, 2008 · A new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience shows that mice treated with large doses of vitamin B3 performed better on memory tests. Kim Green, one of the authors of the study, explains whether this discovery could have any application for treating Alzheimer's in humans. NPR http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2146182/posts#comment Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:09:07 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2145058/posts ... We present a novel computational approach for describing the formation of oligomeric assemblies at experimental concentrations and timescales. We propose an extension to the Markovian state model approach, where one includes low concentration oligomeric states analytically. This allows simulation on long timescales (seconds timescale) and at arbitrarily low concentrations (e.g., the micromolar concentrations found in experiments), while still using an all-atom model for protein and solvent. As a proof of concept, we apply this methodology to the oligomerization of an Abeta peptide fragment (Abeta 21–43). Abeta oligomers are now widely recognized as the primary neurotoxic structures leading to Alzheimer's... Journal of Chemical Physics http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2145058/posts#comment Mon, 8 Dec 2008 20:10:04 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2036595/posts The finding could open the door to improved treatments. Researchers say they've discovered a gene that may make it easier for people to develop Alzheimer's disease, and it could become a target for drug treatments. "This new work not only provides a better understanding of the mechanism leading to the disease, but identifies a risk factor as an important target for therapy," said Philippe Marambaud, an assistant professor of pathology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City and member of an international team of scientists that released its findings Wednesday. Alzheimer's disease, which causes senility and... HealthDay News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2036595/posts#comment Thu, 26 Jun 2008 05:40:02 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2035965/posts Ramona Lamascola thought she was losing her 88-year-old mother to dementia. Instead, she was losing her to overmedication. Last fall her mother, Theresa Lamascola, of the Bronx, suffering from anxiety and confusion, was put on the antipsychotic drug Risperdal. When she had trouble walking, her daughter took her to another doctor — the younger Ms. Lamascola’s own physician — who found that she had unrecognized hypothyroidism, a disorder that can contribute to dementia. Theresa Lamascola was moved to a nursing home to get these problems under control. But things only got worse. “My mother was screaming and out of it,... NY Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2035965/posts#comment Wed, 25 Jun 2008 02:25:12 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2034861/posts The leader of the team that made the discovery, Professor Christopher Rowe of the Austin Hospital in Melbourne, says early diagnosis and treatment presents medical practitioners with the best opportunity to delay the onset of Alzheimer's. "While the discovery is at an experimental stage, this work places Australia at the forefront of neuro-imaging in Alzheimer's disease," Professor Rowe says. A 2004 Access Economics report calculated that if the average age of onset of Alzheimer's was raised by just five months, cumulative savings of A$1.3 billion would be realised by 2020 rising to A$6.6 billion by 2040. Alzheimer's disease is characterised... Medical News Today http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2034861/posts#comment Sun, 22 Jun 2008 22:46:59 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2034115/posts SYDNEY, June 20, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Euthanasia provider and activist Dr. Philip Nitschke has released controversial statements that essentially instruct anyone who believes they are suffering from Alzheimer's disease to avoid obtaining a diagnosis in favour of seeking a doctor who can help them commit suicide as quickly as possible. These comments come on the heels of yesterday's New South Wales jury ruling that convicted two women for the "euthanasia" death of a 71-year old Sydney man, Graeme Wylie, in 2006. As reported by the news service, The Age, Shirley Justins, the wife of Wylie, was convicted of manslaughter for... LifeSiteNews http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2034115/posts#comment Fri, 20 Jun 2008 23:17:03 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1993381/posts TAMPA, FL, March 27, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Targeted immune suppression using human umbilical cord blood cells may improve the pathology associated with Alzheimer's disease, a new study in a mouse model of this currently untreatable neurodegenerative condition reports. The study, led by researchers at the University of South Florida, is published online in the peer-reviewed journal Stem Cells and Development (http://www.liebertpub.com/scd).Following a series of low-dose infusions of human umbilical cord blood cells into mice with Alzheimer's-like disease, the amount of amyloid-ß and ß-amyloid plaques - hallmarks of Alzheimer's pathology in the brain - was reduced 62 percent. Amyloid-ß induces... LifeSiteNews http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1993381/posts#comment Fri, 28 Mar 2008 23:29:57 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1955604/posts Differential regulation of dynein and kinesin motor proteins by the microtubule associated protein tau. The Penn group found that dynein, which carries loads towards the interior of the nerve cell, maneuvers around tau; whereas, kinesin, which carries loads towards the outside of the nerve cell, detaches when it encounters tau. Credit: Credit: Ram Dixit, PhD, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine discovered that proteins carrying chemical cargo in nerve cells react differently when exposed to the tau protein, which plays an important role in Alzheimer’s disease. Dynein and kinesin proteins transport... University of Pennsylvania via PhysOrg.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1955604/posts#comment Fri, 18 Jan 2008 06:35:30 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1943289/posts As we approach one million PLAYSTATION 3 consoles participating in the Folding@Home program, we continue to improve the FAH client. With the new Firmware v2.1 we also prepared an updated version of FAH, which can soon be automatically downloaded by clicking on the FAH icon. This updated version includes the following new features: If you happen to be one of the people that wants to leave their machine running after they finished their late-night gaming session, but wish to shut it down after a limited period of time, we have a great tip for you: Go to Settings menu, select... Playstation.blog http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1943289/posts#comment Sat, 22 Dec 2007 20:29:27 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1941059/posts My husband, at 74, is the baby of his bridge group, which includes a woman of 85 and a man of 89. This challenging game demands an excellent memory (for bids, cards played, rules and so on) and an ability to think strategically and read subtle psychological cues. Never having had a head for cards, I continue to be amazed by the mental agility of these septua- and octogenarians. The brain, like every other part of the body, changes with age, and those changes can impede clear thinking and memory. Yet many older people seem to remain sharp as a... NY Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1941059/posts#comment Tue, 18 Dec 2007 05:29:40 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1935978/posts Even seniors fortunate enough to avoid the horrors of Alzheimer's disease typically experience some declines in memory and other cognitive abilities. Little is known about why this happens, but a new study suggests that cognitive declines in healthy older adults may result when brain regions that normally work together become out of sync, perhaps because the connections between them break down. A team led by Harvard neuroscientists Jessica Andrews-Hanna and Randy Buckner used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to monitor brain activity in 38 young adults, mostly 20-somethings, and 55 older adults, age 60 or above. The researchers focused on... ScienceNOW Daily News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1935978/posts#comment Fri, 7 Dec 2007 04:53:34 GMT