July 06, 2015

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

USA2 SPOTLIGHT

A July 4, 2015 The Washington Post article profiled Jamie Tyrone, a founder of WomenAgainstAlzheimer’s, and her efforts to thwart Alzheimer’s through lifestyle changes. According to the article, “When Jamie Tyrone found out that she carries a gene that gives her a 91 percent chance of developing Alzheimer’s disease beginning around age 65, she sank into a depression so deep that at times she wanted to end her life. Then she decided to fight back. She exercised. She changed her diet. She began taking nutritional supplements, including fish oil, vitamin D, vitamin B12, curcumin, turmeric and an antioxidant called CoQ10. She started meditating and working mind-bending puzzles, such as Brain HQ. She joined a health clinic whose regimen is shaped by a UCLA medical study on lifestyle changes that can reverse memory loss in people with symptoms of dementia. She started a nonprofit group, Beating Alzheimer’s By Embracing Science (BABES), to raise money and awareness about dementia.”

MUST READS

A July 5, 2015 Los Angeles Times article reported that “UC San Diego has sued USC and a nationally recognized Alzheimer's disease researcher, alleging that they illegally conspired to take federal funding, data and employees from a UC San Diego study center on the illness.” According to the article, “The lawsuit, filed in San Diego County Superior Court, charges that scientist Paul Aisen and eight colleagues illegally conspired to take research data and other assets with them when they moved from UC San Diego to USC, allegedly seeking to supplant their former center. Aisen left UC San Diego last month to head a new Alzheimer's institute founded by USC in San Diego, bringing the eight staffers with him.” 

A July 5, 2015 Click2Houston.com article reported on Alzheimer's impact on caregivers. According to the article, “Five evenings a week, Hayes visits the facility that is now her dad's home to feed him and spend time with him in the late stages of Alzheimer’s. ‘It's an overwhelming, devastating disease to watch someone you know deteriorate like that,’ Hayes said. That deterioration also affects caregivers, according to research from Johns Hopkins University, Duke University and Utah State University showing that caregivers of someone with dementia are six times more likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer's as well. ‘Long-term married people have the same diet, health habits, exercise habits. They have the same stressors and lifestyles. It can also be attributed to the stress of caring for a loved one and seeing them deteriorate,’ McBride said. That happened to McBride's father.”

A July 4, 2015 The Telegraph UK article highlighted Alzheimer’s “wandering.” According to the article, “For carers, wandering is much more than a practical problem. It’s another blow: the threat of a physical loss only compounding the emotional one that accompanies the diminution of your role from spouse to carer. Bad enough that you’re watching a personality slowly disappear without the panic of finding an empty chair and an open door. But as numbers of those diagnosed with dementia rise dramatically - 344,000 people in England alone, a surge of 62 per cent in the past seven years, according to the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) - more of us will be party to these disappearing acts.”

RESEARCH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY

A July 4, 2015 Business Standard article reported that new research finds that “Neurons in a brain region called the medial temporal lobe play a key role in our ability to quickly form memories about real-life events and experiences.” According to the article, “The findings could lead to development of new therapies to improve the lives of neurological patients with memory impairment, such as in Alzheimer's disease, traumatic brain injury, or epilepsy. This is the first study to report in humans how individual brain cells help in the formation of episodic memories - recollection of experiences at a particular place and time. ‘It was impressive to see how individual neurons signalled the learning of new contextual associations between people and places and that the changes in firing could occur just after one instance,’ said lead study author Matias Ison from University of Leicester in Britain.”