People who do puzzles and crosswords may stave off dementia longer but experience a more rapid decline once the disease sets in, a study suggests.
While there has long been speculation that “exercising” your brain could protect against Alzheimer’s, there has been little evidence to back this up.
Now US researchers who followed more than 1,000 people suggest the more mentally active may delay the disease.
But once symptoms appeared, decline was quicker, the research suggested.
The team from the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago recruited 1,157 people aged over 65 in the early 1990s.
The 12-year study evaluated mental activities of 1,157 people 65 years or older without dementia at the start. Participants were assessed at baseline, and then for Alzheimer’s at the six-year mark. Then, every three years, they answered questions about how often they participated in activities such as listening to the radio, reading, playing games and going to a museum. They were rated on a five-point cognitive activity scale. The more often people participated in mentally stimulating exercises, the more points they tallied.
Crosswords may stave off dementia
The study found that the rate of cognitive decline in people without dementia was reduced by 52% for each point on the cognitive activity scale. For those with Alzheimer’s, however, the average rate of decline per year increased by 42% for each point on the cognitive activity scale.
“The rationale the authors are using is somewhat similar to what people call ‘cognitive reserve,’ ” says Ron Peterson, director of Mayo Clinic’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.
He says the theory is that in the active mind, the brain creates new neural pathways when damage occurs to circumvent the problems.
Alzheimer’s expert Steven DeKosky, dean of the University of Virginia School of Medicine, uses this metaphor: The active brain is like a piece of good wood that’s been varnished and revarnished over the years. The inactive brain has fewer coats or lower-quality varnish, he says.
“You don’t get symptomatic until you sand down to the bare wood,” DeKosky says.
Wilson says researchers don’t fully understand why active-minded people suffer such a rapid decline once they develop Alzheimer’s, but the study shows the advantages of using your brain because of the early benefits.
That the active-minded person spends less total time in a cognitively disabled and demented state is “a universal good thing,” Wilson says. “It’s good for the affected person, good for their family and friends and good for our public health system.”
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September 2nd, 2010 at 2:31 am
A CANCER drug may hold the key to treating Alzheimer’s disease after a breakthrough by a Nobel prize-winning scientist.
The plaques that form in the brain and lead to dementia could be prevented by using drugs similar to the leukaemia treatment, Glivec.
A study by leading neuroscientist Professor Paul Greengard suggests the way the cancer drug works on the brain is key to developing new treatments.
Around 750,000 people have dementia in the UK, and this number is expected to rise as the population ages.
It is thought that damage to the brain is caused when a protein known as beta-amyloid builds up, preventing messages from zipping around easily.
But destroying beta-amyloid also risks damaging healthy brain cells as well.
However, Glivec appears able to attach itself to a protein known as GSAP, that is needed to fuel the growth of beta-amyloid.
Writing in the journal Nature, Prof Greengard, director of the Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research at Rockefeller University in New York, said: “Alzheimer’s is a devastating disorder for which there are no satisfactory treatments.
September 16th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
Mild memory lapses experienced by older people are often excused as ‘senior moments,’ but a new study has found the brain changes that cause the forgetfulness are also responsible for dementia.
The findings contradict a long-held notion that memory loss is a normal part of ageing, the U.S. team said.
‘We don’t think that just because you are old, a problem in thinking and memory is normal and should be ignored. We think it’s an actual sign of disease,’ said lead researcher Dr Robert Wilson, at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, is a fatal brain disease in which people gradually lose their memory and their ability to reason and care for themselves.
One famous sufferer was author and philosopher Iris Murdoch, who succumbed to the disease in 1999.
Only an autopsy can confirm the brain changes used to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease. Short of that, most patients have to take a battery of memory tests administered by specialists.
October 6th, 2010 at 2:55 am
A research team that includes John Morley, M.D., a Saint Louis University geriatrician, found that having low testosterone may put older men at risk for Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers say the next step is to conduct a large study on testosterone to treat Alzheimer’s disease. Credit: Steve Dolan
Low levels of the male sex hormone, testosterone, in older men is associated with the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, according to research by a team that includes a Saint Louis University scientist.
“Having low testosterone may make you more vulnerable to Alzheimer’s disease,” said John E. Morley, M.D., director of the division of geriatric medicine at Saint Louis University and a study co-investigator. “The take-home message is we should pay more attention to low testosterone, particularly in people who have memory problems or other signs of cognitive impairment.”
The study was published electronically in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and led by Leung-Wing Chu, M.D., who is chief of the division of geriatric medicine at Queen Mary Hospital at the University of Hong Kong.
Researchers studied 153 Chinese men who were recruited from social centers. They were at least 55 years and older, lived in the community and didn’t have dementia. Of those men, 47 had mild cognitive impairment – or problems with clear thinking and memory loss.
Within a year, 10 men who all were part of the cognitively impaired group developed probable Alzheimer’s disease. These men also had low testosterone in their body tissues; elevated levels of the ApoE 4 (apolipoprotein E) protein, which is correlated with a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease; and high blood pressure.
“It’s a very exciting study because we’ve shown that a low level of testosterone is one of the risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease,” Morley said.
The findings corroborate findings in previous studies of older Caucasian men that show low testosterone is associated with impaired thinking and Alzheimer’s disease. They suggest that testosterone may have a protective value against Alzheimer’s disease.
The next step, Morley said, is to conduct a large-scale study that investigates the use of testosterone in preventing Alzheimer’s disease. Morley and his co-authors advocate studying the effectiveness of testosterone replacement in older men who have both mild memory problems and low testosterone in staving off Alzheimer’s disease.
October 6th, 2010 at 2:56 am
A set of proteins found in blood serum shows promise as a sensitive and accurate way to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found as part of a statewide study.
An analysis of the proteins, plus a clinical exam, proved 94 percent accurate in detecting suspected Alzheimer’s and 84 percent accurate in ruling it out in people without the disease, the researchers said.
“This research uses a novel technology that makes it possible to analyze several biomarkers in a single blood sample in a cost-effective way,” said Dr. Ramón Díaz-Arrastia, professor of neurology at UT Southwestern and senior author of the study which was published in the September issue of the Archives of Neurology.
Researchers have been seeking a simple blood test for Alzheimer’s for years, Dr. Díaz-Arrastia said, but no single substance, or “biomarker,” has been shown to be useful. Such a test, he said, would be comparable in principle to measuring blood cholesterol as a biomarker of cardiovascular disease.
Alzheimer’s disease is an incurable degenerative brain disease, which currently afflicts about 5.3 million people over 65 in the U.S., according to the National Alzheimer’s Association. By 2050 that number is expected to reach 11 million or more.
The disease is difficult to diagnose, particularly in its early stages when it resembles other cognitive problems. Currently, a definitive diagnosis is possible only after examining the brain tissue of deceased individuals. Tests for suspected Alzheimer’s are often expensive or invasive, and not every patient is able or willing to undergo them, the researchers stated.
A blood test would provide a convenient diagnostic method that could be performed by health care workers nearly anywhere. In addition, a definitive diagnosis is important because treatments specifically targeting Alzheimer’s might not be effective against other forms of neurodegenerative disease or cognitive decline, Dr. Díaz-Arrastia said.
Researchers associated with the Texas Alzheimer’s Research Consortium, a five-university group funded by the state, carried out the research. In the current study, the scientists analyzed blood samples from 197 Texas patients who had suspected Alzheimer’s and 203 people without the disease.
The researchers measured more than 100 blood proteins and created a mathematical analysis that could measure a person’s risk of having Alzheimer’s. The analysis, combined with information from a clinical exam, accurately detected Alzheimer’s 94 percent of the time, and correctly ruled out Alzheimer’s 84 percent of the time in people without the disease, Dr. Díaz-Arrastia said.
Neither the blood test nor a clinical exam alone was as accurate on its own as the blood test and clinical exam combined, the researchers found.
“Having a diagnosis is an important step, but it’s not the end of the road unless you’ve got a treatment or a cure,” Dr. Díaz-Arrastia said.
The next step in the work is to determine whether the biomarker test can detect accurately Alzheimer’s in preserved blood serum from patients who have been diagnosed definitively by an autopsy.