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 Alzheimer's
ALZHEIMER'S News:
20090219
 Parents
-  Genetics
-  Psychological
-  Health
- Alzheimer's
-  Seniors
-  Employer
-  Workplace
- Discrimination
-  Federal
-  Laws
"Alzheimer's
study finds parental link: Patients' offspring have
memory loss." ... "Children of parents with Alzheimer's disease can develop
memory problems in their 50s or even younger - much earlier than previously
thought - according to a large study released yesterday by researchers
at Boston University School of Medicine." ... "The study subjects, who
carried a gene strongly linked to Alzheimer's, performed worse in memory
tests, on average, than other middle-aged people who had the same gene
but did not have a parent diagnosed with Alzheimer's. The difference in
memory between the two groups was equivalent to approximately 15 years
of brain aging, researchers found." ... "The BU findings do not suggest
that everyone with the gene, known as APOE-e4, will develop Alzheimer's,
said Seshadri. The gene is believed to play a role in about 50 percent
of Alzheimer's cases. The study also did not address whether the people
showing early memory impairment were destined to develop Alzheimer's."
... "[T]he study has not yet gone through the traditional scientific vetting
process, which includes other scientists reviewing the data before it is
published in a journal." ... ""I wonder about genetic discrimination,"
said Dr. Rudy Tanzi, a neurology professor at Harvard Medical School who
co-discovered three other genes that have been linked to early-onset Alzheimer's,
a more rare form of the disease that typically strikes before 65." ...
""If it's out there that my parents have APOE-e4, there is a chance my
employer might know and wonder, 'Should I promote this guy?' " Tanzi said."
... "The BU findings, he added, increase the urgency for stronger genetic
nondiscrimination laws. Tanzi said that even though a federal law - The
Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, enacted last year - protects
against employment discrimination, he worries about subtle discrimination
in
the workplace." -By Kay
Lazar -BostonGlobe
20070607
-
Stem
Cell -
 Science
- Money
- Alzheimer's
- Health
-  Politics
- 2008
Election -  MD
- "House
OKs stem cell research bill." ... "Making good on
a key campaign promise and reigniting a longstanding ethical controversy,
the House approved legislation Thursday to expand federal funding of embryonic
stem cell research in the search for cures to diseases such as Parkinson's,
Alzheimer's and juvenile diabetes." ... "The bill now goes to the White
House, and President Bush promised to veto it when he returns from Europe
next week. He said Thursday that the House "chose to discard existing protections
on human life."" ... "The Senate also has passed the stem cell measure,
but supporters in both chambers have fallen short of the two-thirds majority
necessary to override a veto." ... "Still, the Democratic Congress' passage
of the bill which is also supported by a number of high-profile Republicans,
including Nancy Reagan forces Bush into the position of rejecting a popular
bill and reinforces a political confrontation that will doubtless reach
into the 2008 presidential contest." ... ""This legislation does not seek
to destroy life, it seeks to preserve life," said House Majority Leader
[Democratic Representative] Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), noting that the embryos
would be discarded by fertility clinics in any case. "We have a moral obligation
to provide our scientific community with the tools it needs to save lives,
and this legislation accomplishes exactly that."" -By
Jill Zuckman -ChicagoTribune
20050825
-
 Missouri
-
- Psychology
-
- "Idle
brain invites dementia: Researchers say daydreaming
may cause changes that lead to the onset of Alzheimer's disease." ... "Scientists
have scanned the brains of young people when they are doing, well, nothing,
and they found that a region active during this daydreaming state is the
one hard-hit by the scourge of old age: Alzheimer's." ... ""We never expected
to see this," said Randy L. Buckner, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute
investigator at Washington University in St. Louis [Missouri]. He said
he suspects these activity patterns may, over decades of daily use, wear
down the brain, sparking a chemical cascade that results in the disease's
classic deposits and tangles that damage the brain." -By
Jamie Talan -Newsday.com
20050824
-
 PA
- Psychology
- Language
-
- "Study
Links Daydreaming, Alzheimer's." ... "Scientists
who set out to explore changes in the brain as Alzheimer's disease progresses
got a surprise: a possible link between daydreaming and the degenerative
brain disease that robs memory, language and thought." ... "The part of
the brain involved in daydreaming is always active, even if the mind is
at rest, said William Klunk, coauthor of the study and associate professor
of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh [Pennsylvania]. "It's like
an engine on idle," he said. "It never shuts down. That activity might
fuel the sequence of events that could lead to Alzheimer's."" -By
Cheryl Wittenauer -AP
via -SFGate.com
-
Psychology
-
- "Daydreaming
activity linked to Alzheimer's." ... "The parts of
the brain that young, healthy people use when daydreaming are the same
areas that fail in people who have Alzheimer's disease, researchers reported
on Wednesday in a study that may someday help in preventing or diagnosing
the disease." ... ""We appear to use memory systems often in our default
states," [Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Randy] Buckner said
in a statement. "This may help us to plan and solve problems. Maybe it
helps us be creative. But it may also have metabolic consequences.""
-Reuters via -AlertNet.org
20050823
-
Missouri
- Psychology
-
- "Study
offers insights on Alzheimer's roots: Disease targets
areas of the brain that are involved in daydreaming." ... "The brain areas
involved in daydreaming, musing and other stream-of-consciousness thoughts
appear to be the same regions targeted by Alzheimer's disease, researchers
are reporting in a study that offers new insights into the deadly illness's
roots." ... "The strong correlation between the two suggests there might
be a link between the sort of thinking that people regularly do when not
involved in purposeful mental activity and the degenerative disease that
is characterized by forgetfulness and dementia, said scientists who conducted
the federally funded study." ... "Randy Buckner, a neuroscientist at Washington
University in St. Louis [Missouri], said the implications of the finding
are far from clear." -By Shankar Vedantam-WashingtonPost
via -HoustonChronicle.com
-
- Psychology
-
- "Alzheimer's
Hits Brain's 'Daydream' Centers." ... "Reporting
in the Aug. 24 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, they [the researchers]
unexpectedly found that the regions of the brain that light up when you
slip into comfortable patterns of thought are the same as those that later
in life exhibit disabling clumps of plaque, a key characteristic of Alzheimer's."
-By Dennis Thompson -Forbes
20020929
-
- STEM
CELL NEWS
- "Nancy
Reagan Fights Bush Over Stem Cells." ... "Mr. Bush
sharply limited such research. At 81, the former first lady is obliquely
but persistently campaigning — through friends, advisers, lawmakers and
her own well-placed calls and letters — to reverse the president's decision."
... "Mrs. Reagan believes that embryonic stem cell research could uncover
a cure for Alzheimer's, the disease that has wiped out her husband's memory.
She was dismayed, friends say, when the White House took issue on Monday
with a new California law that encourages embryonic stem cell research."
... ""A lot of time is being wasted," she told a friend last week who was
given permission to pass her words on to The New York Times. "A lot of
people who could be helped are not being helped."" -By
Alessandra Stanley -NYTimes
via -Google-News
20020227
-
- Psychology
- Genetics
- PGD
- Alzheimer's
-
- "Alzheimer's
Gene Screened From Newborn." ... "Applying sophisticated
genetic tests to batches of human eggs, doctors in Chicago have helped
a 30-year-old woman give birth to a baby who is free of her family's curse
of early Alzheimer's disease." ... "Doctors said it was the first time
genetic screening had been used to cull a form of Alzheimer's from a family
line." ... "Without the screening, the newborn would have faced fifty-fifty
odds of becoming hopelessly senile by the time she was 40." ... "The work
is the latest of a string of advances in a field known as pre-implantation
genetic diagnosis [PGD], in which eggs or embryos are tested for disease
genes and only embryos lacking such genes are transferred into a woman's
womb." -By Rick Weiss-WashingtonPost
20011121
-
"Curry
'may slow Alzheimer's'." It's possible that
the spice "turmeric may play a role in slowing down the progression of
the neurodegenerative disease." ... "The crucial chemical is curcumin,
a compound found in the spice." -BBC
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