June Alzheimer's News

Newfound Mechanisms May Unlock Answers To Alzheimer's Disease.
June 30, 2007 - Four million people in the United States and 15 to 20 million people worldwide are affected by Alzheimer's disease. In their attempt to combat the disease, two University of Missouri-Columbia professors have identified new mechanisms that could have major implications in treatments.
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Obesity Could Leave 2.5m With Dementia.
June 30, 2007 - Soaring rates of obesity could cause a dementia epidemic
with 2.5 million Britons suffering from the condition by 2051, experts have warned.
Professor Clive Ballard, of the Alzheimer's Society, said: "Obesity is a huge risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. People who are overweight at 60 are more than twice as likely to get dementia by 75."
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Alzheimer's Drug Begins Human Trials.
June 27, 2007 - Human clinical trials are under way for a U.S. drug to treat Alzheimer's disease, based on the design of a Purdue University researcher. "Current drugs manage the symptoms, but this could be the first disease-modifying therapy," said Professor Arun Ghosh. "It may be able to prevent and reverse the disease."
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Evidence Grows Against Antipsychotics for Alzheimer's Patients.
June 24, 2007 - A new study adds to growing evidence that antipsychotic drugs can raise death rates among elderly dementia patients, who are sometimes given them when their behavioral problems become too much for doctors or families to handle.
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News Brief: New AD Drug Candidate Gets to First BACE
June 20, 2007 - Privately owned CoMentis Inc. announced yesterday that it had received U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance to begin a phase 1 trial of its β-secretase (BACE) inhibitor CTS-21166, which it hopes to develop for the treatment of Alzheimer disease.
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Parkinson Update: New Data Reveals Complexities of PINK1, DJ-1 Biology
20 June 2007 - Since mutations in the PINK1 and DJ-1 genes were found to cause autosomal recessive forms of Parkinson disease (PD), scientists have wondered what these genes might tell us about this second most common neurodegenerative disorder. Recent in vitro data strengthen the case that both proteins play a role in protecting neurons from oxidative damage.
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Mix Of Disease Processes At Work In Brains Of Most People With Dementia, Study Finds.
June 16, 2007 - Among their findings is the observation that the combination of Alzheimer's disease and cerebral infarcts (strokes) is the most common mix of pathologies in the brains of people with dementia. The implication of these findings is that public health efforts to prevent and treat vascular disease could potentially reduce the occurrence of dementia, the researchers say in the paper.
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Penn Researchers Link Cell’s Protein Recycling Systems.
June 13, 2007 - Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered a molecular link between the cell’s two major pathways for breaking down proteins and have succeeded in using this link to rescue neurodegenerative diseases in a simple animal model.
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