ReThinking Lou Gehrig's Disease
Read this article featured in Discover about Lou Gehrig and the disease that bears his name:
That may seem a strange question, akin to asking who’s buried in Grant’s tomb. But a new study proposes that some athletes diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease may in fact have a different fatal disease that is set off by concussions.
Researchers have previously investigated the link between athletes and this neurodegenerative disease, more technically known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). A recent study examined what seemed to be a higher than usual incidence of Lou Gehrig’s disease among soccer players, and, of course, the disease bears the name of a New York Yankee who was famously undaunted by the hard knocks of his sport. Though it’s impossible to determine now whether Lou Gehrig suffered from ALS or a different condition (Gehrig was cremated), the study’s lead author speculates that Lou Gehrig’s disease might be a misnomer:
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activities, and has poor planning and judgment skills. You can either think back to your own teenage angst or look at your kids or grandkids. That combination leads to a cycle in which impulsive decisions to consume reduce inhibitions more and lead to increased impulsiveness and risk taking.
as time to take away her car and driving ability. First off, I bought her the car a few years ago and so she spent her last years driving a new sporty car as opposed to the 20 year old Toyota her late husband left her. And second, I moved her in with me to help make up for the transportation burden. We drive her wherever she needs to go. But a responsible decision needed to be made to get her less than safe driving skills off the road. For her sake, our sake, and most importantly, for the sake of other drivers and passengers including little babies.
nd smoking indicates that smoking cigarettes is a significant risk factor for the disease. After controlling for study design, quality of the journals, time of publication, and tobacco industry affiliation of the authors, the UCSF research team also found an association between tobacco industry affiliation and the conclusions of individual studies. Industry-affiliated studies indicated that smoking protects against the development of Alzheimer's Disease, while independent studies showed that smoking increased the risk of developing the disease. 
Studies of alcohol use and cognition among the elderly are rare and have mixed results. A study of drinking among the elderly in Brazil has found that heavy alcohol use is associated with more memory and cognitive problems than mild-to-moderate alcohol use, especially among women.
pressure was strongly correlated with volume of lesions in their brains' white matter, according to 
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dementia were assessed. These patients were followed for between 0.8 and 5.5 years after having the scan and underwent between two and six assessments for dementia during that timeframe.
Therapies that can keep us younger longer might also push back the clock on .jpg)
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The general pattern of brain atrophy resulting from Alzheimer's disease has long been known through autopsy studies, but exploiting this knowledge toward accurate diagnosis and monitoring of the disease has only recently been made possible by improvements in computational algorithms that automate identification of brain structures with MRI. The new methods described in the study provide rapid identification of brain sub-regions combined with measures of change in these regions across time. The methods require at least two brain scans to be performed on the same MRI scanner over a period of several months. The new research shows that changes in the brain's memory regions, in particular a region of the temporal lobe called the entorhinal cortex, offer sensitive measures of the early stages of the disease. 
