Saturday, July 29, 2017

Just One Night Of This May Elevate The Protein Responsible for Alzheimer's

CREDIT: Getty Images

This bad habit may be increasing the risk of Alzheimers (and it's not the amount of sleep you get)
  
The spectrum of our intellectual and emotional states, from curiosity, learning, exploration, and innovation to joy, happiness, love, and sadness all stem from that wonderful clump of neurons no larger than our two fists pressed together; intricate, tiny, fragile, and magnificent.
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Saturday, July 22, 2017

Training And Meds May Help Advanced Alzheimer's

Image Source: FRESHDESIGNPEDIA

Skills lost, such as dressing or bathing, can potentially be relearned, small study suggests

People with advanced Alzheimer's can relearn some basic skills when they receive special training along with medication, a small study suggests.
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Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Combining care program with drug reduces damaging effects of Alzheimer's disease

Image Source: BRIDGEHOUSEABINGDON

Combining a specific care management program with a commonly-prescribed drug for Alzheimer's disease multiplies the medication's ability to improve daily function by about 7.5 times, stalling some of the disease's most damaging effects.
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Monday, July 17, 2017

Senior TV show to shed light on caring for loved ones with Alzheimer’s

Photo Jacqueline Ramseyer/Bay Area News Group/April 20, 2017 Val Jeffery, right, is producing her fourth and final program in a series on Alzheimer’s for The Better Part. With her is longtime friend Michael Sullivan, who was interviewed and talks about caring for his late wife Patricia, who passed from Alzheimer’s back in 2015.

Sullivan, who lives in Windsor, England, found assistance in his longtime friend Val Jeffery, who helps produce “The Better Part,” a public access television show run entirely by a volunteer group affiliated with Cupertino TV Productions, based out of the city’s senior center.
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Sunday, July 16, 2017

An Ancient Cure for Alzheimer’s?

Eleanor Davis Credit Eleanor Davis

In 2011, Ben Trumble emerged from the Bolivian jungle with a backpack containing hundreds of vials of saliva. He had spent six weeks following indigenous men as they tramped through the wilderness, shooting arrows at wild pigs. The men belonged to the Tsimane people, who live as our ancestors did thousands of years ago — hunting, foraging and farming small plots of land. Dr. Trumble had asked the men to spit into vials a few times a day so that he could map their testosterone levels. In return, he carried their kills and helped them field-dress their meat — a sort of roadie to the hunters.

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Saturday, July 15, 2017

Strawberry Compound Fisetin Slows Cognitive Decline of Aging in Mouse Study

Researchers fed the antioxidant fisetin, found in strawberries and other fruits and vegetables, to mice for seven months and found that the compound partially protected the animals from age-associated cognitive decline.
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Labels: study

Friday, July 14, 2017

A new Alzheimer's disease study examines how cognitive and physical activity can help brains stay healthy

Research participants in the cognitive activity intervention group will spend 150 minutes a week reading about modifiable lifestyle factors important for aging and Alzheimer’s disease to determine its impact on their brain health. Credit: Glenn marzano

It can start slowly and with slight changes.

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Thursday, July 13, 2017

Missing link identified between immune cells and Alzheimer's

Immune cells called perivascular macrophages (green) are observed in close contact with blood vessels in the brain (red). When activated by plaque deposits from the peptide amyloid-beta, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, perivascular macrophages produce damaging free radicals that paralyze blood vessels and deprive the brain of the needed supply of nutrients and oxygen. Credit: Cornell University

By studying the effects of immune cells that surround blood vessels in the brain, Weill Cornell Medicine researchers have discovered a new pathway involving these cells that may contribute to the cause of Alzheimer's disease.
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Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Students Make Smart Companion Animals for Alzheimer’s Patients

by KAITLIN MITCHELL

In an as-told-to essay for College Game Plan, Fiona Kalensky, co-founder of Therapalz, explains what she's learned navigating the business development process as a student.


My dorm room pitch

We build smart therapeutic companion animals for individuals with Alzheimer's and dementia. We began 2 1/2 years ago as a human-centered design group. We attended caregiver support sessions and spoke with nursing professionals and administrators.

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Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Sleep, Alzheimer's link explained

Research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, and Stanford University shows that disrupting just one night of sleep in healthy, middle-aged adults causes an increase in a brain protein associated with Alzheimer's disease. Further, a week of poor sleep leads to an increase in another brain protein that has been linked to brain damage in Alzheimer's and other neurological diseases. Shown are brain waves during slow-wave sleep, measured as a study participant slept. Credit: Yo-El Ju

A good night's sleep refreshes body and mind, but a poor night's sleep can do just the opposite. A study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, and Stanford University has shown that disrupting just one night of sleep in healthy, middle-aged adults causes an increase in amyloid beta, a brain protein associated with Alzheimer's disease. And a week of tossing and turning leads to an increase in another brain protein, tau, which has been linked to brain damage in Alzheimer's and other neurological diseases.

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Labels: study

Monday, July 10, 2017

Scientists Uncover the Chemical Structure of Key Protein Responsible For Alzheimer’s

Knowing how scores of the protein bundle together will make it easier to disrupt their accumulation and stop their harmful effect from spreading uncontrollably.

By studying the brain tissue from a deceased 74-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s disease, researchers from the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK were able to isolate tau proteins and explore their structure in unprecedented detail using Cryo-Electron Microscopy (cryo-EM) — a revolutionary imaging technique that studies samples at extremely low temperatures.
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Sunday, July 9, 2017

Drug shown to reverse Alzheimer’s symptoms in mice

Photo: Beth Harpaz / Associated Press
FILE - A new drug can restore memories and connections between brain cells in mice with a model of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study led by researchers from Yale University.(AP Photo/Beth J. Harpaz)

A new drug can restore memories and connections between brain cells in mice with a model of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study led by researchers from Yale University.
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Saturday, July 8, 2017

New study aims to stop progression of early-onset alzheimer's disease: VIDEO

For many, symptoms begin to appear when a person is in his or her 60s or 70s. But a small percentage of people begin to show signs in their 50s, 40s and even 30s.

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Labels: Video

Friday, July 7, 2017

DEMENTIA FIGHT Alzheimer’s breakthrough could pave way for raft of new drugs to treat the devastating disease

THIS close-up glimpse of tangled protein in the brain cells of an Alzheimer's patient could mark a turning point in treatment of the disease, scientists believe.

Getty Images

Boffins from Cambridge University have managed to generate the most detailed image of the protein known to be linked to the condition

Understanding the structure of  these so-called "tau tangles" is expected to help in the search for drugs that target the abnormality.

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Thursday, July 6, 2017

Alzheimer’s–Cancer Links Identified at Genetic Level

Image Source: NATIONALTURK

Alzheimer’s disease, lung cancer, and brain cancer—all devastating, all leading public health challenges—have been thought to harbor connections at the molecular level, connections that could explain curious co-morbidities. Specifically, in cases of Alzheimer’s disease, the risk of developing lung cancer is decreased, and the risk of developing glioblastoma, a kind of brain tumor, is increased.
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Labels: study

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

These 15 Foods May Prevent Alzheimer’s

BERRIES
Berries - especially blueberries and strawberries - are rich in anthocyanin. This compound works to protect the brain from damage done by free radicals. A buildup of free radicals in the brain has been linked to memory loss and a decline in brain function.
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Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Drug discovery: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's spurred by same enzyme

A Parkinson's disease brain sample, stained with an antibody that only recognizes the N103 chunk of alpha-synuclein, which is generated through cleavage by AEP. Credit: From Zhang et al NSMB (2017).

Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease are not the same. They affect different regions of the brain and have distinct genetic and environmental risk factors.
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Monday, July 3, 2017

This New Alzheimer's Discovery Could Be The Key To Future Treatments

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Researchers may have uncovered the critical missing piece that could lead to new treatments for Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. It’s an enzyme that plays a role in how the disease develops, but could also be harnessed to work against the tangled accumulation of proteins that eventually wreak havoc in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.
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Sunday, July 2, 2017

Human enzyme may be key to unraveling Alzheimer's disease

Abnormal protein buildups (shown here) are involved in a number of neurodegenerative conditions, including Alzheimer's disease.

Protein aggregates are the hallmark of a number of neurodegenerative diseases. New research, published in the journal PLOS Biology, examines a human enzyme that unravels these disruptive plaques.

Neurodegenerative diseases already affect millions of people in the United States. They tend to strike in middle to later life, and, because the population is starting to live longer, the number of cases is set to rise.
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Saturday, July 1, 2017

Western Diet Increases Alzheimer's Pathology In Genetically Predisposed Mice

Obese mice with a particular version of a gene strongly associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) in humans show increased Alzheimer's pathology, according to new research published in eNeuro. The study suggests lifestyle changes could reduce the likelihood of developing AD in individuals with this genetic predisposition.

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