 |
| Author | Post |
|---|
Meg Mangin R.N.
Research Team
|
Posted: Thu Jul 26th, 2007 02:11 |
|
[filelink]
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease is definitively diagnosed by autopsy only. The label of Alzheimer's is used when the clinical picture suggests this disease or sometimes because people understand what that diagnosis means. The general term for a decline in cognitive functioning is dementia.
........................................................................................................
This study shows "Alzheimer's Disease Cases Set to Quadruple Worldwide by 2050"
Dementia is a Th1 disease, as is, I suspect, Alzheimers. Did the Vitamin D researchers look at the impact of Vitamin D on the occurrence of Alzhiemers in their cohort? Of course not.
Additionally, they used subsetting in their cohort so as to produce a better result with elderly women. This is about as unethical as you can get, IMO.
..Trevor..
Antibiotics May Help Stave Off Alzheimer's
In a 101-patient Canadian study, Alzheimer's patients treated with antibiotics doxycycline and rifampin for three months had significantly less mental decline than those given dummy pills, said Dr. Mark Loeb, associate professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and the study's lead author.
"Nevertheless, Loeb suggested that antibiotics may be an option for Alzheimer's patients who are not doing well on standard therapy.
"If I had a family member suffering from Alzheimer's, I would show this study to the physician and see what they think," he said.
Link between inflammatory gum disease and Alzeimer's
"A study of identical twins found a strong link between gum disease marked by early tooth loss and (Altzheimer's)....
"Scientists think it is not the gum disease but the accompanying inflammation that helps trigger Altzheimer's.
"The study leader is Professor Margaret Gatz from University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
"Early exposure to inflammation quadruples the risk of developing the disease... the research suggests."
Clinic in Germany
There is a clinic in Germany which is treating dementia with a variation of the MP and has found the patients herx to indicate a Th1 disease. However, by the time the disease becomes advanced, they are no longer able to look after themselves, and the MP requires a lot of self-discipline in order to be effective.
The problem is compliance, as the patients have trouble focusing on avoiding sunlight/Vit-D, and remembering to take their Benicar. They seem to be responding. And, most important, they herx, their disease relapses after a day soaking in the sun, and some show (very) tentative signs of recovery.
There is not much to be gained by varying from the base MP. With the Dementia patients it is tough to get 100% compliance, unless they have an efficient caregiver (in other words, they don't take their meds on time). Additionally, there is little appreciation, at the level of the patient, of avoiding ingested Vitamin D.
There is little chance that a patient having gone through the MP is likely to develop dementia, but at this point it is also unlikely that Alzheimers patients, in an advanced state of disease, would be able to discipline themselves enough for recovery
..Trevor..
Borrelia
Dr Alan McDonald is one of the group of colleagues who were brought together by Dr Andy Wright. Like Dr Alan Cantwell, he had been in retirement until I sparked this renaissance in interest in bacterial pathogenesis. He did some wonderful work in the 1970's, particularly. IMO, he is a little too myopic on Borrelia, and we discuss this issue in detail on the (private) professionals' forums.
Most of the German Dementia patients are positive for Rickettsia. (a coccoid, not a spirochete) (as tested by Jardin Labs) and very few have a positive Borrelia titre (as tested by Bowen Labs).
I have had enough of this suggesting that Alzheimers is caused by Borreliosis. It is not. It occurs throughout the world, including areas where there are no Borrelia, nor any spirochetes. Sometimes Rickettsia are found to be coexistent, sometimes other species.
But get rid of this crazy concept that Borrelia causes Alzheimers. It doesn't. As the paper above says "Borrelia burgdorferi persists in the brain in chronic Lyme neuroborreliosis..." The bacteria persist, but they do not cause. Otherwise you would only find Alzheimers where there is Borrelia, and that is not the case.
I have laid out the detailed reasons that Borrelia has to be a co-infection. I have laid out the reasons that what you find in autopsy tissue may have no relevance to the clinical disease that caused the patient's death. And most of all, I have explained that Alzheimers and Dementia occur in regions of the world where there are no ticks carrying Borrelia spirochetes.
Chronic disease is caused by Th1 bacteria, but not by the obvious species (eg, Borrelia, Treponema). Focus on the spirochetes is counter-productive, as it paints the Lyme community into a remote corner of the medical landscape.
Yes, the Th1 pathogens induce production of amyloids, and yes, they also stop the body from dealing effectively with co-infections like Borrelia and Bartonella. But chronic disease (including Alzheimers) will persist after the spirochete has been eliminated. This is the same problem that folks with AIDS find when they get rid of HIV. When the DVDs of my recent conference presentation are available please review very carefully how I explain the problems devising an effective cure for that disease. Modern medicine has not been very good dealing with multifactorial disease.
..Trevor..
See also:
Duke University researchers connect vitamin D with brain lesions
|
Meg Mangin R.N.
Research Team
|
Posted: Wed Aug 1st, 2007 01:31 |
|
[Alzheimer'sLink]
Members experiences
April 05- I'm wondering if this TH1 factor explains the elevated proteins in my CSF and the high tau protein level with low AB found in the Alzheimer test that was done. It was done because despite mega antibiotics and excellent diet I still continue to loose my brain function slowly bbut noticeably.
July05- the mino has been great at the Alzheimer type symptoms and my spelling has gotten much better.
June 07- Yes my health has improved. Overall the symptoms are less than they were in severity. I am stronger. Still have space outs and forgetfulness. Still have lapses of clarity. It doesn't scare me us much though- I chuckle instead. It's more stress and pressure. Still have physical pain that can make a day hard. BUT I am smiling now more and laughing more. I hear myself singing. I know I must be getting better as people are telling me I am. If they notice then IT MUST BE SO. ~Mkap2nd
......................................................
|
Meg Mangin R.N.
Research Team
|
Posted: Wed Aug 1st, 2007 01:47 |
|
[filelink]
Link Between Diabetes and Alzheimer’s Deepens
Note: This article illustrates the connection between diseases of inflammation but fails to note the bacterial etiology.
The New York Times
July 17, 2006
By DENISE GRADY
Several new studies suggest that diabetes increases the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, adding to a store of evidence that links the disorders. The studies involve only Type 2 diabetes, the most common kind, which is usually related to obesity.
The connection raises an ominous prospect: that increases in diabetes, a major concern in the United States and worldwide, may worsen the rising toll from Alzheimer’s. The findings also add dementia to the cloud of threats that already hang over people with diabetes, including heart disease, strokes, kidney failure, blindness and amputations.
But some of the studies also hint that measures to prevent or control diabetes may lower the dementia risk, and that certain diabetes drugs should be tested to find whether they can help Alzheimer’s patients, even those without diabetes. Current treatments for Alzheimer’s can provide only a modest improvement in symptoms and cannot stop the progression of the disease.
The new findings were presented yesterday by the Alzheimer’s Association at a six-day conference in Madrid attended by 5,000 researchers from around the world.
Alzheimer’s affects 1 in 10 people over age 65, and nearly half of people over 85. About 4.5 million Americans have it, and taking care of them costs $100 billion a year, according to the association. The number of patients is expected to grow, possibly reaching 11.3 million to 16 million by 2050, the association said.
But those projections do not include a possible increase from diabetes.
“Alzheimer’s is going to swamp the health care system,” said Dr. John C. Morris, a neurology professor at Washington University in St. Louis and an adviser to the Alzheimer’s Association.
Not everyone with diabetes gets Alzheimer’s, and not all Alzheimer’s patients are diabetic. But in the past decade, several large studies have found that compared with healthy people of the same age and sex, those with Type 2 diabetes are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s. The reason is not known, but researchers initially suspected that cardiovascular problems caused by diabetes might contribute to dementia by blocking blood flow to the brain or causing strokes.
More recently, though, scientists have begun to think that the diseases are connected in other ways as well. In both, destructive deposits of amyloid, a type of protein, build up: in the brain in Alzheimer’s, in the pancreas in Type 2 diabetes.
People with Type 2 often have a condition called insulin resistance, in which their cells cannot properly use insulin, the hormone needed to help glucose leave the blood and enter cells that need it. To compensate, the pancreas makes extra insulin, which can reach high levels in the blood. Too much insulin may lead to inflammation, which can contribute to damage in the brain.
In addition, abnormalities in glucose metabolism and insulin levels in the brain itself may be harmful. Some research has found that too much insulin in the brain can contribute to amyloid buildup. Researchers have even suggested that Alzheimer’s disease may actually be “Type 3 diabetes,” a form of the disease affecting the nervous system.
About 20 million people in the United States have Type 2 diabetes. The number has doubled in the past two decades. An additional 41 million are “prediabetic,” with blood sugar rising toward the diabetic level. Diabetes rates are expected to increase because rates of obesity are rising, and epidemiologists predict that one in three American children born in 2000 will eventually develop Type 2 diabetes.
Worldwide, diabetes is also on the rise, increasing to 230 million cases from 30 million in the past 20 years.
One of the new studies found that even people who had borderline diabetes were 70 percent more likely than those with normal blood sugar to develop Alzheimer’s. The study, by researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and the Stockholm Gerontology Research Center, included 1,173 people 75 and older.
The incidence of dementia was highest in borderline diabetics who also had high blood pressure. But the higher risk occurred only in those who did not carry the gene apo E4, which is associated with some cases of Alzheimer’s.
The director of the study, Dr. Weili Xu, said that since increased exercise and changes in diet can reverse borderline diabetes, they may also help ward off dementia.
Another study found that in people with diabetes, the higher their blood sugar, the greater the risk of dementia. Higher levels of blood sugar mean the diabetes is severe or is being poorly treated, or both.
The study, led by Rachel A. Whitmer of the Division of Research at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif., was based on the records of 22,852 patients with Type 2 diabetes who were followed for eight years.
Initially, none had dementia. The researchers looked at glycosylated hemoglobin, a blood test that reflects blood sugar levels for the previous two months. Normal is 7 or lower. Here, the risk of dementia rose when the level reached 10. Those with readings from 10 to 11.9 had 13 percent more risk than people with levels below 10. From 12 to 14.9, the risk was 24 percent higher. Over 15, it jumped to 83 percent higher.
In an interview, Dr. Whitmer said one implication of the study was that tight control of blood sugar was important in elderly patients, even though some doctors tended to relax the rules for them.
“Tight control is important for the whole life span,” Dr. Whitmer said. “The older you are, the more likely you are to get dementia.”
She added: “With the whole diabetes epidemic we’re seeing much more Type 2, so are we going to see even more Alzheimer’s than we thought we would see? If we continue in this direction, it’s a little bit frightening.”
Another study suggested that a certain class of diabetes drug, commonly called a glitazone, might lower the risk of Alzheimer’s in people with diabetes. Pilot studies in small groups of patients have hinted that the drugs may be of some help, and the National Institute on Aging is sponsoring research in this area.
In the study, researchers used the records of 142,328 patients in the Veterans Affairs system who did not have dementia but were just starting to take a glitazone or insulin. They tracked the patients for six years. Compared with those using insulin, among the patients who took pioglitazone (Actos) or rosiglitazone (Avandia), there were nearly 20 percent fewer cases of Alzheimer’s. The glitazones had a similar advantage over another diabetes drug, metformin.
Glitazones lower blood sugar by helping the body to use insulin more efficiently, so that less insulin is needed. The drugs may also lower inflammation.
Though the results sound like good news for patients, the director of the study, Donald R. Miller, an epidemiologist at Boston University and at the Department of Veterans Affairs, cautioned that the findings were not conclusive and that they did not mean that people should start taking the drugs to ward off Alzheimer’s.
“This is preliminary, the first study of its kind,” Dr. Miller said, emphasizing that more studies were needed to verify his results.
GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of rosiglitazone, sponsored the study but did not control the way it was done or interpreted, Dr. Miller said.
Another study, a small one with only 25 patients, tested pioglitazone for 18 months in nondiabetic people with Alzheimer’s to see if it was safe and showed signs of slowing the disease.
The drug did seem safe, causing only some foot and ankle swelling. But compared with people taking placebos, patients taking the drug showed no statistically significant differences in memory, thinking, daily function or abnormal behavior.
But there were hints that some measures worsened less in the patients on the drug, and the researchers, led by Dr. David S. Geldmacher of the University of Virginia, said it deserved further study in Alzheimer’s. The study was sponsored by the drug’s maker, Takeda.
|
Meg Mangin R.N.
Research Team
|
Posted: Fri Oct 26th, 2007 02:57 |
|
[filelink]
Study shows that most older adults have signs of brain damage
|
Meg Mangin R.N.
Research Team
|
Posted: Tue Apr 8th, 2008 23:16 |
|
[filelink]
Depressed people more prone to Alzheimer's: study
Mon Apr 7, 2008 4:16pm EDT
By Andrew Stern
CHICAGO (Reuters Life!) - People with depression are more likely to later develop Alzheimer's disease, according to two studies published on Monday, and one team said that chronic stress may damage their brains.
"What we think it suggests is that depression truly is a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, and not simply a sign that the disease is developing," Dr. Robert Wilson, a neuropsychologist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago who led one study, said in a telephone interview.
Some researchers have assumed that Alzheimer's causes depression, so Wilson's team tracked 917 retired Catholic priests and nuns, 190 of whom developed Alzheimer's disease. Those with more symptoms of depression at the beginning of the study were more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease.
But Wilson's group did not find a sudden onset or worsening of depression in the few years before symptoms of the brain disease took hold.
"Our thinking is that depression somehow causes damage to part of the brain called the limbic system, and this is the part of the brain that Alzheimer's disease preferentially attacks," Wilson said.
The limbic system includes the hippocampus and amygdala, which play key roles in emotions and memory.
The subjects in the study, which appeared in the Archives of General Psychiatry, were asked about depressive symptoms and not about specific episodes.
"In terms of depressive symptoms, those are fairly consistent from year to year as people have a chronic tendency to be depressed or not be depressed -- it's not just something that randomly varied from year to year," Wilson said.
DAMAGED CONNECTIONS
Wilson cited one theory that chronic stress from depression releases excessive amounts of the brain hormone cortisol that ultimately damages the filigreed connections between brain cells called dendrites.
Depression has not been shown to have a direct relationship to the brain plaques and tangles often found during autopsies on Alzheimer's victims, Wilson said.
"Some people die with lots of plaques and tangles but they don't have dementia. Some people die with few plaques and tangles and they do have dementia. This has long been known that plaques and tangles aren't the whole story. They're other things going on that are causing loss of cognition and memory ... we think depression is involved in one of those pathways," he said.
Everyone reaching their 70s and 80s likely has some physical manifestations of Alzheimer's in their aging brains, Wilson said, but not all develop the mind-robbing symptoms.
"We think that some people are more vulnerable or it takes less of a dose because of other changes that are taking place in the brain," such as damage inflicted by depression, he said.
A related theory that depression shrinks the hippocampus and amygdala and paves the way for Alzheimer's was not supported by a Dutch study published on Monday in Neurology, a journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Magnetic resonance images were taken of the subjects' brains at the beginning of the study, and depression was not associated with brain shrinkage.
But among the 134 of 503 people in the study who reported seeking help for depression, the risk of Alzheimer's was 2.5 times higher than among those who were not depressed.
"We don't know yet whether depression contributes to the development of Alzheimer's disease or whether another unknown factor causes both depression and dementia," said Monique Breteler of Erasmus University in Rotterdam.
|
Current time is 14:22 | |
|
|
|
|
