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Despite widespread belief in its usefulness, vitamin E supplements are no more effective than sugar pills for delaying the onset of Alzheimer's disease in people with mild memory changes, a study published this week in The New England Journal of Medicine suggests. The research also suggests that for certain patients the drug Aricept, previously shown to moderate the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease after it is diagnosed, may also work to delay its onset. The researchers studied 769 patients with mild cognitive impairment, or M.C.I., the mental deterioration that is often the precursor of full-blown Alzheimer's. Patients were randomly assigned to...

In Preliminary Study, NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Team Finds IVIg Therapy May Improve Cognitive Function in Alzheimer's Patients (This original title is too long for FR.) Delivered Antibodies Bind to Disease-Causing Amyloid Proteins NEW YORK (April 11, 2005) — In what could prove to be an important development in the search for a treatment of Alzheimer's disease, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center physician-scientists say the results of an initial (Phase I) clinical study provide encouraging evidence that antibodies derived from human plasma can capture the beta-amyloid protein in blood and exert positive effects on patients' thinking abilities. Beta-amyloid is a central component...

  Receiving the best form of vitamin E is critical in obtaining the health benefits of this essential vitamin. One recent study showed that gamma-tocopherol, (which is the form that is highest in food) may actually be superior to alpha-tocopherol (the type that is found in most supplements) in the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers speculate this may explain the absence of vitamin E protection against Alzheimer's reported in some previous studies with the use of vitamin E supplements. Most of the previous studies have used vitamin E supplements that only contained alpha-tocopherol. To reach this conclusion, researchers examined whether...

Confused issues Stem cell research could soon give us a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, right? Wrong, says The Times science correspondent Ask most people why scientists are so keen to experiment with stem cells and it will not be long before they mention Alzheimer’s disease. Dementia patients might be elderly but they have become the poster kids for this new and controversial branch of medical technology. When Chinese researchers claimed this week to have grown human brain cells in culture for the first time, many reports hailed the work as an important step towards a cure for Alzheimer’s. The...

Curry Ingredient, curcumin, may help  Treat Alzheimer's   Alzheimer's disease is an irreversible, progressive brain disorder that occurs gradually over time and results in memory loss, unusual behavior, personality changes and a decline in thinking abilities. It affects more than 4 million Americans and many millions across the globe. However, the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease among adults ages 70 to 79 in India is more than four times less than the rate in the United States. Why such a significant difference? Some researchers believe the answer for this drastic disparity in Alzheimer's patients found in India is a direct...

Meat Increases the Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease “Extensive evidence points to the rich Western diet as the fundamental cause of Alzheimer’s disease: … Worldwide, the incidence of AD [Alzheimer’s disease] is more common among people who follow meat- and dairy-centered diets, than among those people who eat a more plant-based diet.” —Dr. John McDougall, McDougall Wellness Center Indeed, a flood of research shows that the toxins in meat, including chicken and fish, increase your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, while the antioxidants in vegetables help prevent this deadly disease. Click here to learn more. In the wake of former President...

It happened without warning, early one day last summer as they prepared to go out. Gloria Rapport's husband raised his arm to her, fist poised. "He was very close to striking me," she said. What had provoked him? "Nothing," she said. "I asked him to get in the car." Mrs. Rapport's husband, Richard, 71, has Alzheimer's disease. His forgetfulness and confusion began about nine years ago, not long after they married. More recently, emotional troubles have loomed. Anxiety came first: he suddenly feared being left alone in the house. Outbursts of anger followed. The man she had always known to...

The first call Sheldon Goldberg got on his first day as president of the Alzheimer's Association was not from a patient or a doctor but from Michael D. Bromberg, chairman of the Capitol Health Group, a well-connected Washington lobbying firm. "He said he had a problem," Goldberg recalled, "and the problem was the position of the Alzheimer's Association." Bromberg represented an industry that stood to make millions if PET scans -- already used to help diagnose some cancers -- were to be reimbursed by Medicare as a test for Alzheimer's. Medicare officials had already said no, citing inadequate evidence that...

Election officials should supervise voting in nursing homes and other long-term-care facilities and give brief mental tests to residents with dementia to determine whether they are competent to vote, a panel of experts in law and medicine is recommending. The experts are also urging changes in voting laws involving mental competence, which vary by state, to conform to a 2001 court decision that helped define a person's "capacity to vote." Voting by people with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia is "an emerging policy problem," the experts warn, in an article being published today in the Journal of the...

Election officials should supervise voting in nursing homes and other long-term-care facilities and give brief mental tests to residents with dementia to determine whether they are competent to vote, a panel of experts in law and medicine is recommending. The experts are also urging changes in voting laws involving mental competence, which vary by state, to conform to a 2001 court decision that helped define a person's "capacity to vote." Voting by people with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia is "an emerging policy problem," the experts warn, in an article being published today in the Journal of the...

Scientists are reporting that, for the first time, they have made an artificial prion, or misfolded protein, that can, by itself, produce a deadly infectious disease in mice and may help explain the roots of mad cow disease. The findings, being reported on Friday in the journal Science, are strong evidence for the so-called "protein only hypothesis," the controversial idea that a protein, acting alone without the help of DNA or RNA, can cause certain kinds of infectious diseases. The concept was introduced in 1982 by Dr. Stanley Prusiner, a neurology professor at the University of California in San Francisco,...

Stem Cells Not the Priority for Alzheimer'sNewsMax.com WiresFriday, June 11, 2004 NEW YORK – Despite the high profile that Nancy Reagan and others have given the idea of using embryonic stem cells to treat Alzheimer's disease, advances are likely to come faster from other approaches. Experts cite other more promising efforts that in five to 10 years may be used to fight the disease that led to President Reagan's death. "I just think everybody feels there are higher priorities for seeking effective treatments for Alzheimer's disease and for identifying preventive strategies," said Marilyn Albert, a Johns Hopkins University researcher who...

WASHINGTON : Too bad Ronald Reagan never developed a taste for curry. It might have saved him from Alzheimer's disease. As the former President's death focuses attention on the degenerative brain condition that devastates memory, recent studies have shown that diets rich in curcumin, a compound found in the common Indian curry spice turmeric ( haldi ) can help prevent Alzheimer's. In fact, American researchers reckon the high incidence of turmeric use is one reason why the disease is rare in India . Studies have noted that the elderly living in Indian villages appear to have the lowest incidence of...

Alzheimer's disease can seem unrelentingly grim. There is no cure, no known way to prevent the illness, and the benefits of current treatments are modest at best. But in laboratories around the country, scientists are uncovering clues that may eventually — perhaps even in the next two decades — allow them to prevent, slow or even reverse the ruthless progression of the illness. "Things are more hopeful than perhaps people think," Dr. Karen Duff of the Nathan Kline Institute of New York University said. "We are on the cusp of having something really useful." That hope comes on the heels...

The drugs now available to treat the memory and thinking problems of Alzheimer's disease have not lived up to the public's high expectations for them and offer such modest benefits on average that many doctors are unsure about whether to prescribe them. Although the drugs have their advocates, grateful for any sign of improvement, others express disappointment in light of earlier hopes that the drugs approved in the last decade would stop the disease or markedly slow it. At a meeting in late March at Johns Hopkins University, doctors and other health professionals heard Alzheimer's researchers debate the usefulness of...

The red wine reduced the risks of insanity, the beer increases these risks Tuesday November 12, 2002 - 16h39 GMT WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 (AFP) - To regularly drink red wine reduced of more than half the risks of insanity while the beer has the opposite effect, doubling the probabilities of being touched in particular by the disease of Alzheimer, according to a study carried out in Denmark and published Tuesday in the United States. "These results are interesting because they could mean that certain substances of the wine reduce the supervening of the insanity", the author of the study...

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SAT SEPT 28 2002 14:02:38 ET XXXXX NANCY REAGAN WORKS TO REVERSE BUSH STEM CELL POLICY "A lot of time is being wasted. A lot of people who could be helped are not being helped." The words of former first lady Nancy Reagan on the issue of Bush's policy of limited stem cell research. MORE Reagan's secret campaign to reverse the Bush decision on the matter is outlined publicly for the first time in Sunday runs of the NEW YORK TIMES, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. Mrs. Reagan believes that embryonic stem cell research could uncover...