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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...

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...

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.

... 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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Scientists reported progress today toward one of medicine’s long-sought goals: the development of a blood test that can accurately diagnose Alzheimer’s disease, and even do so years before truly debilitating memory loss. A team of scientists, based mainly at Stanford University, developed a test that was about 90 percent accurate in distinguishing the blood of people with Alzheimer’s from the blood of those without the disease. The test was about 80 percent accurate in predicting which patients with mild memory loss would go on to develop Alzheimer’s disease two to six years later. Outside experts called the results, published online...

A ruling by the national drug watchdog to limit access to an Alzheimer’s drug has been upheld by the High Court. The drug company Eisai challenged the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) over its guidance that for most patients Eisai’s drug Aricept was not a cost-effective use of NHS resources. This was the first legal challenge to a NICE judgment and, except in one aspect, it was a failure. In the High Court yesterday Mrs Justice Dobbs ruled that on five out of six issues raised by Eisai and the Alzheimer’s Society, the challenge failed. NICE’s decision,...

DEGENERATIVE brain diseases, including Alzheimers, could one day be treated with drugs that can reverse distressing loss of memory, according to a study released Sunday. The very term "memory loss'' could be a misnomer in such cases, suggests the study, published in British journal Nature: that cherished recollection of a first kiss, seemingly destroyed by disease, may have simply been rendered inaccessible by obstructed neural pathways. In laboratory experiments, mice suffering the type of brain damage which in humans typically leads to dementia - robbing victims of the ability to remember past events or even to recognize loved ones -...

Immune Antibodies Penetrate Neurons To Clear Alzheimer's-Linked Amyloid - Discovery Could Advance Treatment For Alzheimer's, Immune Diseases Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College have gotten much closer to understanding how immune-based therapies can treat Alzheimer's disease -- by studying how antibodies go inside brain cells to reduce levels of Alzheimer's-linked amyloid peptides that form plaques between neurons. "This internalization and activity of the antibody within the cell was a big surprise and something we really haven't appreciated in neurological medicine. It gives us new hope for the use of immunotherapy against Alzheimer's, while casting intriguing new light on other disease...

A diet rich in a type of omega-3 fatty acid can help prevent Alzheimer's disease, and a newly discovered molecule might block enzymes in the brain that lead to plaque formations -- a hallmark of the progressive brain disorder -- two new studies suggest. In one of those studies, at the University of California, Irvine, scientists used genetically engineered mice and it is reportedly the first to show that an omega-3 fatty acid known as docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA for short, can slow the accumulation of tau, a protein that leads to plaque and tangles in brain tissue seen in...

Ron Reagan, Jr., admitted Monday night that embryonic stem cell research will probably be absolutely useless in the quest to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease - throwing cold water on the big media's campaign to sell the controversial science as medically effective in battling the affliction that killed Reagan's father. "Alzheimer‘s is a disease, ironically, that probably won‘t be amenable to treatment through stem cell therapies," Reagan told MSBC's Chris Matthews. So why have he and his mother, former first lady Nancy Reagan, made stem cell research their cause celeb? "For people to suggest that [Nancy Reagan] shouldn’t support...

A substance found in fish oil may be associated with a significantly reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s and other dementias, researchers reported yesterday. The scientists found that people with the highest blood levels of an omega-3 fatty acid called docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, were about half as likely to develop dementia as those with lower levels. The substance is one of several omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids found in fatty fish and, in small amounts, in some meats. It is also sold in fish oil or DHA supplements. The researchers looked for a reduced risk associated with seven other omega-3 fatty...