Neuroscientists show that HDAC2 enzyme could be a good target for new drugs
by Anne Trafton, MIT News Office for Eureka Alert 

MIT neuroscientists have shown that an enzyme overproduced in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients creates a blockade that shuts off genes necessary to form new memories. Furthermore, by inhibiting that enzyme in mice, the researchers were able to reverse Alzheimer’s symptoms.

The finding suggests that drugs targeting the enzyme, known as HDAC2, could be a promising new approach to treating the disease, which affects 5.4 million Americans. The number of Alzheimer’s victims worldwide is expected to double every 20 years, and President Barack Obama recently set a target date of 2025 to find an effective treatment.

Li-Huei Tsai, leader of the research team, says that HDAC2 inhibitors could help achieve that goal, though it would likely take at least 10 years to develop and test such drugs.

by Doug Brunk for Family Practice News

The development of the positron emission tomography radiotracer known as AV-45, or florbetapir F18, for the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease carries within a certain “curse,” said Dr. Jeffrey L. Cummings of the Cleveland Clinic’s Lou Rubo Center for Brain Health.

The PET scan can show positive results 5-10 years before Alzheimer’s symptoms appear, which raises a multilayered dilemma for clinicians.

“Let’s say someone comes to you and says, ‘My mom had Alzheimer’s at age 75 years. I’m now age 70, and I want to know if I’m going to have it.’ You can tell them,” Dr. Cummings said at the conference. “There is going to be a moral, ethical, and cost dilemma that is brought with this scan.

“I don’t think we will use it on [cognitively] ‘normal’ people except in very special circumstances. I think we will use it to sort out those patients with mild cognitive impairment who are in the earliest stage of Alzheimer’s disease. This is going to be a great point of dialogue in the coming year.”

by PR Newswire

Do you recall what you ate for breakfast today or dinner last night?  According to new research, you may have a better chance of remembering if you include walnuts.

Recent findings published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease report walnut consumption in a Mediterranean diet is associated with better memory scores and cognitive function.  The results suggest that antioxidants present in walnuts and other Mediterranean dietary patterns may help counteract age-related cognitive decline and reduce the incidence of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease.

This cross-sectional study evaluated whether antioxidant-rich foods from the Mediterranean diet were associated with better cognitive performance in a subsample (447) of elderly participants (aged 55-80 years) from the landmark Spanish PREDIMED study – a dietary intervention trial in asymptomatic individuals with high cardiovascular risk.  The researchers evaluated the intake of various foods and performed neuropsychological tests to assess cognitive function in relation to diet, and analyzed the urinary excretion of polyphenols as a biomarker of daily intake of antioxidants.

by Denise Mann for Health Day

“Chemo brain,” the name given to the mental fog and related memory problems that can occur during and after chemotherapy, may last for two decades after breast cancer treatment, new research suggests.

In the new study, 196 women with breast cancer who were treated with chemotherapy roughly 21 years earlier performed worse on tests of their memory, processing speed and other thinking (“cognitive”) skills when compared to their counterparts who had never been diagnosed with cancer.

Participants had all been treated for breast cancer with a chemotherapy combination that included the drugs cyclophosphamide, methotrexate and 5-fluorouracil between 1976 and 1995. This regimen was considered the standard of care for breast cancer worldwide from the 1970s to the 1990s and was received by thousands of women during this time. Women in the study were aged 50 to 80.

by Juliana Bunim Senior Journal

The ability to anticipate future events allows us to plan and exert control over our lives, but it may also contribute to stress-related increased risk for the diseases of aging, according to a study by UCSF researchers.

In a study of 50 women, about half of them caring for relatives with dementia, the psychologists found that those most threatened by the anticipation of stressful tasks in the laboratory and through public speaking and solving math problems, looked older at the cellular level.

The researchers assessed cellular age by measuring telomeres, which are the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes. Short telomeres index older cellular age and are associated with increased risk for a host of chronic diseases of aging, including cancer, heart disease and stroke.

by American Pain Society

Women age 50 and older who experience worsening pain with aging also have a higher risk for depression, obesity and declining physical function, according to research reported in The Journal of Pain, the peer-review publication of the American Pain Society.

Persistent pain complaints are common among women at midlife or older, according to published studies that have shown pain prevalence in this population is as high as 70 percent. Researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle sought to identify the psychosocial, demographic and clinical factors that can predict changes in pain and functioning among post-menopausal women with recurrent pain conditions.

Scientists experimented on mice using a chemical to maintain the supply of blood glucose to brain cells
by The Mirror

Alzheimer’s disease could be cured by preventing low blood sugar in the brain, scientists revealed yesterday. They experimented on mice using a chemical to maintain the supply of blood glucose to brain cells – and found it helped to stop dementia.

Chemical biologist Prof David Vocadlo and his team at the Simon Fraser University in Canada, genetically programmed mice to develop Alzheimer’s before injecting them with the chemical called Thiamet-G. He said the study provided fresh insights into dementia and added: “These results could help us to hinder progression ofAlzheimer’s disease.”

Those who consumed the most did better on tests of mental functioning, study says
by Carina Storrs for Health Day

Middle-aged and elderly adults who regularly eat foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids may slow the mental decline that leads to dementia, according to a new study.

Researchers found that people with the highest blood levels of these essential fatty acidsfound in fish such as salmon and tuna were more likely to perform well on tests of mental functioning and to experience less age-related brain shrinkage.

“We feel fatty-acid consumption exerts a beneficial effect on brain aging by promoting vascular health,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Zaldy Tan, associate professor at the Easton Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research and the division of geriatrics at the University of California, Los Angeles. This might include reducing blood pressure and inflammation, he added.

by Rob Kemp for The National

Ever put your mobile phone down and can’t think where you left it? Wondering if you closed the door behind you when you left the house? Met an old friend but suddenly can’t recall their name? We’re all victims of these “senior moments” as some like to call them. They’re the nagging little incidents of momentary forgetfulness that we put down to just that: forgetfulness.

However, research now suggests that there may be more to such minor memory failings than we think and that if we don’t train our brains to stay sharp, then cognitive decline and diseases such as dementia can strike much earlier in life than experts previously thought. A joint study from the Centre for Research in Population Health in France, along with University College London, suggests that brain skills such as memory and reasoning may go into decline at just around the time life is said, by many, to really begin – in our forties.

by Meredith Heagney for The Columbus Dispatch

Reading this newspaper might help you prevent Alzheimer’s disease. So might writing a letter, playing a card game or visiting a library.

Researchers have long believed that cognitive activity could help strengthen the brain’s defenses against the devastating neurological disease. But a new study shows for the first time how that might work. Test subjects who engaged in cognitive exercise over a lifetime had less of a protein that is believed to contribute to brain-cell decline in Alzheimer’s patients.

Researchers at the University of California-Berkeley used brain scans to measure the amount of beta amyloid, a protein that accumulates between nerve cells and reduces brain function. They tested healthy young people, healthy older people and a group of Alzheimer’s patients and found that the healthy older people who exercised their brains throughout their lives had less beta amyloid built up in their brains. That means they should be less likely to contract Alzheimer’s.