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A cup of coffee may do more than help start your day. A new study suggests coffee may go a long way toward protecting your brain cells from the damage of Alzheimer's disease and several other neurological diseases. The research, which came from the Alzheimer's Institute in Florida, found coffee protects the brain. Other studies have found no difference in brain protection whether someone drinks caffeinated or decaf so the "protector" may be one of the 70 other chemicals found in a cup of joe. Some good news is that it's not too late to start enjoying a cup of...

ONE hundred years ago today, a 42-year-old German psychiatrist and neuropathologist named Alois Alzheimer shocked colleagues with his description of one woman’s autopsied brain. The woman was named Auguste Deter. Five years earlier, her husband had admitted her to Alzheimer’s psychiatric hospital in Frankfurt with a disturbing set of symptoms: memory trouble, aphasia (loss of the ability to use words), confusion, bursts of anger and paranoia. She had become a danger to herself in the kitchen and needed constant care. Alzheimer found his new patient sitting on a bed with a helpless expression. “What is your name?” he asked. “Auguste,”...

What are the costs of a progressive brain disease on an aging society? At the 10th International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders (ICAD), in Madrid in July 2006, Dr. Anders Wimo of the Stockholm Gerontology Research Center and Aging Research Center at Karolinska Institute, Sweden, said worldwide costs of dementia care (combined direct and informal costs) is around $248 billion annually. This overlooks the fact many suffer the ill effects and still receive no care and that our aging population is growing at a breathtaking rate. "These startling cost estimates for Alzheimer's care clearly illustrate the great challenges...

Scientists Create Brain Cells, Predict Possible Rapid Development of Treatments for Alzheimers and Parkinson's WASHINGTON, June 14, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - American researchers have found a method of growing batches, or lines, of fully mature brain cells. This has often been predicted as the end of such neurological diseases as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s. The ethical new technique mimics the brain’s own natural process of changing stem cells into neurons. For the moment, the research has been confined to mice, but the researchers are hopeful that their work can soon be transferred to human patients. Bjorn Scheffler, a neuroscientist at Florida...

AP MEDICAL WRITER WASHINGTON -- Scientists have discovered molecular janitors that clear away a sticky gunk blamed for Alzheimer's disease - until they get old and quit sweeping up. The finding helps explain why Alzheimer's is a disease of aging. More importantly, it suggests a new weapon: drugs that give nature's cleanup crews a boost. "It's a whole new way of thinking in the Alzheimer's field," said Dr. Andrew Dillin, a biologist at California's Salk Institute for Biological Studies who led the new research. The discovery, published Thursday by the journal Science, was made in a tiny roundworm called C....

Health and Science Correspondent WASHINGTON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - An Alzheimer's pill that helps slow the brain damage caused by the disease may also protect against the effects of nerve gases and pesticides, U.S. researchers reported on Monday. They said the drug, marketed under the name Reminyl and Razadyne, completely protected guinea pigs against the nerve agents soman and sarin, as well as toxic amounts of pesticides. They gave the animals high doses of the poisons and treated them with Reminyl, known generically as galantamine, along with atropine, often given as an antidote for organophospate pesticides such as paraoxon. "To...

A blood product normally used to treat immune disorders and a type of leukemia may also slow or stop mental decline in people with Alzheimer’s disease, researchers reported yesterday at an Alzheimer’s conference in Madrid. The product is called IVIg (pronounced EYE-vig), for intravenous immunoglobulin, also known as gamma globulin. Made from pooled blood plasma, it is a thick soup of antibodies, the proteins made by the immune system to get rid of unwanted substances. It has been used for 30 years for other diseases and is dripped into a vein like a transfusion. But the findings in Alzheimer’s are...

Several new studies suggest that diabetes increases the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, adding to a store of evidence that links the disorders. The studies involve only Type 2 diabetes, the most common type, which is usually related to obesity. The connection raises an ominous prospect: that increases in diabetes, a major concern in the United States and worldwide, may worsen the rising toll from Alzheimer’s. The findings also add dementia to the cloud of threats that already hang over people with diabetes, including heart disease, strokes, kidney failure, blindness and amputations. But some of the studies also hint that measures...

Alzheimer's disease, a dreaded specter for many elderly, is far more likely to strike individuals with Down syndrome. Now, a study with a mouse model of Down syndrome may explain why. The work hints at potential targets for future drugs that fend off dementia--in people with Down syndrome and in the general population too. Down syndrome is caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21. It affects roughly 1 in 800 people, causing mild to moderate mental retardation and a range of other health problems, including early-onset dementia. By age 40, the brains of all people with Down syndrome develop...

An arthritis drug shows promise in a small, experimental study targeting a root cause of Alzheimer's -- inflammation in the brain. WALTER Skotchdopole worked for 20 years as a police officer and 20 years in the film industry before succumbing to the relentless decline of Alzheimer's disease. In his prime, he joked with everyone he met. By his early 70s, he had become a shell of his former self. "He's there, but he's not," says his son James Skotchdopole. "There's no real interaction, no real stake in life." Walter Skotchdopole had tried several drugs, with no noticeable improvement. But when...

P-I REPORTER Determining your chances of developing dementia or Alzheimer's disease could be as simple as timing your walk, testing the strength of the grip of your dominant hand and checking your balance when standing still. That's what a Seattle-based research team determined during a six-year study of 2,288 people 65 and older. Dr. Eric Larson, director of Group Health's Center for Health Studies, said the study started in 1994 and is ongoing, but the analysis of the first six years was published in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine. When the study began, none of the participants showed signs of...

Plaque on the brain doesn't sound good, but the condition may not be as crippling as once thought. Mice with the gummy deposits-- usually a symptom of Alzheimer's disease--can still have normal memories, according to a new study. The findings suggest a novel target for Alzheimer's drugs and a new way of understanding how the disease ravages the brain, say the researchers. Alzheimer's is thought to be caused in part by sticky build up of a toxic peptide called â amyloid, produced when the amyloid precursor protein (APP) is cut in two. Recent research, however, has shown that early signs...

Close window Published online: 21 April 2006; | doi:10.1038/news060417-10 Death of Alzheimer victim linked to aluminium pollutionBrain autopsy of pollution victim rekindles contaminant fears.Michael Hopkin Aluminum can accumulate in the twists of deformed proteins that characterize Alzheimer's disease.© SPL Fears of a link between aluminium and Alzheimer's disease have been reignited by the case of a British woman who died of the illness 16 years after an industrial accident polluted her local drinking water. An autopsy on Carole Cross's brain showed that she was suffering from a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's when she died in May 2004, and...

An unusual number of deaths among patients in a large study of Aricept, the most popular drug to treat Alzheimer's disease, is raising concern among federal drug officials and some disease experts. In the study, of 974 patients who suffered from dementia related to heart disease, 11 deaths occurred among the patients taking Aricept, while no deaths occurred among those taking dummy pills. The Food and Drug Administration is examining the results of the study, said Susan Bro, an agency spokeswoman. The agency undertook a quick review of earlier Aricept studies and found no cause for concern, Ms. Bro said....

AP Biotechnology Writer SAN FRANCISCO — It's tragedy enough that Pat Williams' mother has Alzheimer's disease. But Williams is also terrified because her chances of inheriting the disease are much better than average. So Williams eagerly enrolled her 90-year-old mother last year in a massive, 1,600-patient, 18-month clinical trial testing an experimental drug made by the biotechnology company Myriad Genetics Inc. The drug, called Flurizan, slowed the mind-robbing disease in some of the 128 patients with mild Alzheimer's participating in a smaller test. Based on those results, the company has gambled millions of research dollars on the largest-ever Alzheimer's drug...

MONTREAL, Feb. 17 (UPI) -- Canadian researchers said Friday they have uncovered a natural defense mechanism to Alzheimer's disease. Not surprisingly, it involves stem cells -- those derived from bone marrow. In Alzheimer's patients, plaque forms in the brain, but the brain's resident immune cells, called microglia, can't fight off the substance. The plaque can then kill off the brain's neurons, or nerve cells. However, microglia harvested from bone marrow stem cells do appear capable of defeating the plague, said researchers from the Faculty of Medicine at Université Laval and the research centre at Centre hospitalier universitaire de Québec, Canada....

ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK -- Older anti-psychotic drugs are no safer and might even be worse for the elderly than newer ones that the government warned about earlier this year - both raise the risk of death, a study suggests. The Food and Drug Administration asked drug makers in April to add warnings to the labels of newer anti-psychotics because studies showed the drugs nearly doubled the risk of death for older patients with dementia. These drugs are widely used to treat the aggressive behavior, delusions and hallucinations sometimes experienced by those with dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. Researchers at Harvard's...

SITTING the other day in front of Picasso's rapturous "Girl Before a Mirror" at the Museum of Modern Art, Rueben Rosen wore the dyspeptic look of a man with little love for modern art. But the reason he gave for disliking the painting was not one you might expect to hear from an 88-year-old former real estate broker. "It's like he's trying to tell a story using words that don't exist," Mr. Rosen said finally of Picasso, fixing the painter's work with a critic's stare. "He knows what he means, but we don't."This chasm of understanding is one that Mr....

On Oct. 4, screen legend and former president of the National Rifle Association Charlton Heston turned 82 years old. He still lives at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. - 90210 - with his wife of over 50 years, Lydia Clarke Heston. Tony Makris of Alexandria, Virginia's Mercury Group public relations firm, a longtime friend who handles NRA public relations, tells NewsMax that he had dinner with Heston and family just last Sunday. The famous actor, Makris said, is in the midst of a "quiet retirement." In 2002, Heston was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. His last major public appearance was...

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...