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Most interesting news pegging the tobacco-industry.

A UCSF analysis of published studies on the relationship between Alzheimer's disease and 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.

Study findings were published online in the January issue (19:2) of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.  

Alcohol Use Found in Cognitive Decline

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.

Results will be published in the April 2010 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research .
 

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Now the million of cell phone users have good reason to keep on talking.  It baffles my mind to learn of something typically regarded as negative being cast into a positive light.  Reminds me of Woody Allen's Sleeper where future scientists discover cigarette smoking and eating fat is healthy.

An international team of researchers studying the long term effects of electromagnetic waves like those emitted by cell phones on mice were surprised to find they protected their brains against Alzheimer's and even reversed the memory damage caused by the disease.

The neuroscientists, electrical engineers, and neurologists published the study and findings in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. 

The research results are exciting.  But since they occur in mice, the ultimate human affects are still not known.  Dr. Susan Sorenson, Alzheimer's Society Head of Research, comments, 'This study could open new doors in Alzheimer's research but it also poses some interesting questions that need answers. However, dementia research is dramatically underfunded. The government currently spends eight times less on dementia research than cancer research. In order to make further scientific advances dementia needs to be given higher priority.' 

"Electromagnetic Field Treatment Protects Against and Reverses Cognitive Impairment in Alzheimer's Disease Mice."
Gary W. Arendash, Juan Sanchez-Ramos, Takashi Mori, Malgorzata Mamcarz, Xiaoyang Lin, Melissa Runfeldt, Li Want, Guixin Zhang, Vasyl Sava, Juan Tan and Chuanhai Cao.
Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, Volume 19:1 (January 2010).
 

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The American Medical Association (AMA) reports that PET (postron emission tomography) is able to detect the progression of Alzheimer's in patients with dementia.  Preclinical Alzheimer's disease can be detected by screening an individual's cerebrospinal fluid for biomarkers of the condition. In addition, imaging with positron emission tomography (PET) can detect deposits of the substance linked to dementia in living patients.

159 older adults (average age 71.5) who had undergone PET scans and did not have symptoms of 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.

A total of 23 participants progressed to clinically detectable dementia during follow-up, and nine were diagnosed with dementia of the Alzheimer type. These diagnoses were made by specialist clinicians who diagnosed the condition at an earlier stage than typically occurs and corroborated the diagnosis by declines in multiple cognitive domains as well as a loss of volume in certain areas of the brain.
 

If this new discovery can assist clinicians in detecting dementia and Alzheimer's symptoms earlier, treatment can be more effective.

This study provides support for the premise that preclinical Alzheimer's disease, detected by the cerebrospinal fluid signature for Alzheimer's disease predicts symptomatic Alzheimer's disease.  The study is published at Arch Neurol. 2009;66[12]:1469-1475.
 

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Have you ever seen a 65 year old man with graying head driving with the top down in his brand new red Corvette?  Or how about the 80 year old great grandmother who thinks her jet black hair is fooling anybody?  Well these otherwise refusing-to-act-their age folks might just be on to something.

God bless my grandmother, Mary, 86 years young.  She lives with me and my family and we just got back from a Christmas Holiday cruise.  And that was her second cruise in 6 months!  We call her the energizer bunny for obvious reasons.

Therapies that can keep us younger longer might also push back the clock on Alzheimer's disease, suggests a new study of mice in the December 11th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication.

Reduction of insulin signaling is known to extend life span, but now Dillin and colleagues report that this strategy can also work to mitigate and forestall the affects of Alzheimer's disease in a mouse model.

Most cases of Alzheimer's disease (AD) exhibit sporadic onset during the seventh decade of life or later, whereas the fewer mutation-linked, familial cases typically manifest during the fifth decade. These temporal features, common to numerous neurodegenerative diseases, define aging as the major risk factor for the development of these maladies (Amaducci and Tesco, 1994).

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A new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) promises to improve diagnosis and monitoring of Alzheimer's disease.  Scientists at the University of California, San Diego have developed a fast and accurate method for quantifying subtle, sub-regional brain volume loss using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). 

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.
 

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Researchers in the USA have discovered a potential new function for anti-epileptic drugs in treating neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. The study, published in BioMed Central's open access journal Molecular Neurodegeneration, found that neurons in the brain were protected after treatment with T-type calcium-channel blockers, which are commonly used to treat epilepsy.

Read more here.

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A new study from a center for Alzheimer's research in the US suggests that cognitive skills other than memory, for example visuospatial skills that help us work out how objects relate to each other in three dimensions as we look at them, start to decline years before patients receive a clinical diagnosis for Alzheimer's.
 

In an article found at "Longitudinal Study of the Transition From Healthy Aging to Alzheimer Disease."
David K. Johnson; Martha Storandt; John C. Morris; James E. Galvin.
Arch Neurol, Oct 2009; 66: 1254 - 1259, conclusions were that pre-diagnosis events occur that currently do not fit into criteria for Alheimer's diagnosis.  Therefore what was formerly thought to be normal aging may actually be signs of Alzheimer's disease. 
 

The studies were funded by grants from the National Institute of Health.

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The incidence of Alzheimer's is known to affect adult brains in later years.  But did you know the incidence also increases after and as a result of traumatic brain injury?

Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia. The disease gets worse as it develops - it is a progressive disease. There is no current cure for Alzheimer's, although there are ways of slowing down its advance and helping patients with some of the symptoms. Alzheimer's is also a terminal disease - it is incurable and causes death.

According the National Institute on Aging, there are estimated to be between 2.4 million and 4.5 million Americans who have Alzheimer's. There are approximately 417,000 people in the UK with Alzheimer's, according to the Alzheimer's Society.

Alzheimer's disease is a progressive neurologic disease of the brain leading to the irreversible loss of neurons and the loss of intellectual abilities, including memory and reasoning, which become severe enough to impede social or occupational functioning.

An excellent look at the history, causes and diagnosis of Alzheimer's can be found by clicking here.

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My collegue and friend David Kracke writes from Oregon:

Tim;

Thanks for sharing this informative and important study. I have always suspected this relationship between TBI and symptoms consistant with Alzheimer's Disease. Having a study to confirm it helps significantly.

FYI: Check out an opinion piece I wrote that ran last month in the Oregonian: http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/06/maxs_law_one_tragedy_that_need.html

Thanks, Tim. Keep up the good work.

David Kracke
Attorney,
Portland, Oregon
503-224-3018

Thanks David.  Same to you and hopefully I can visit Portland soon.  I'll call you when I do.

Tim

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