Taking statins which are used to lower cholesterol.
Talk with your doctor before using any of these products to prevent Alzheimer's disease.
As we learn more about the causes of Alzheimer's disease, we also may learn more about how to prevent the disease. Drugs currently in development to prevent the formation of neurofibrillary "tangles" or amyloid plaques that damage the nerve cells in the brain may someday be used in people who are at risk for Alzheimer's.
Research into a vaccine for Alzheimer's disease is ongoing.
STROKE
More than 700,000 Americans suffer strokes annually. Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the country and causes more serious long-term disabilities than any other disease.
New Stroke Therapy
Some stroke patients can regain considerable function and strength in their 'bad' arm by doing repetitive tasks with it while restraining thier 'good' arm. This intensive therapy called CIMT or Constant Induced Movement Therapy, was developed by Dr. Edward Taub several years ago. It has been slow to be accepted as no long term studies were available to prove its benefits.
The Journal of the American Medical Association has recently published the results of a year long study lead by Dr. Stephen L. Wolf of Atlanta's Emory University School of Medicine which confirms that with CIMT Therapy stroke patients whose arm strength has been reasonably preserved can be trained to do tasks 34% more efficiently.
CIMT Therapy is a two week treatment, at a cost of about $5000. The procedure is not yet covered by Medicare, but Dr. Wolf hopes that as a result of this promising report it will soon be approved, thereby allowing more stroke patients access to it.
Robotic Therapy Helps Restore Hand Use After Stroke
According to a Universiy of California, Irvine study, a robotice device may help people regain strength and normal use of the affected hand long after a stroke.
Thirteen stoke victims participated in the pilot study by receiving 15 two-hour therapy sessions spread over a three week period. After therapy sessions using the Hand-Wrist Assisting Robotic Device (HOWARD), stroke patients with impaired hand use reported improved ability to grasp and release objects.
The robotic device wraps around the hand and directs patients through a computerized physical therapy program. HOWARD users must initiate hand motion, thereafter the robot helps complete the task so that the brain relearns what it's like to make the full movement. Robot-assisted therapy may help 'rewire' the brain and make weak limbs move better.
The UCI team members are now using what they learned from the HOWARD study to improve the therapy with more hand-robot connections and more software option to help individualize the therapy for different stroke related situations.
High dose of Vitamin D may Help Prevent Falls in the Elderly.
That finding comes from a study of 124 residents of a Boston nursing home.
The study shows that residents who took a daily dose of 800 international units (IU) of vitamin D for five months were less likely to fall than those who took either lower doses or no vitamin D.
"Ensuring that nursing home residents are receiving adequate daily supplemental vitamin D may reduce the number of falls in elderly nursing home residents and could potentially reduce the risk of fracture in this high-risk group," write the researchers.
They included Kerry Broe, MPH, of the Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife in Massachusetts. Hebrew SeniorLife operates senior health care, housing, research, and education in the Boston area.
The study appears in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
About Vitamin D
Vitamin D acts in the body as a hormone. Its tasks include keeping bones strong by boosting their calcium absorption.
Vitamin D may also help muscle function, Broe's team notes.
The body makes vitamin D when exposed to sunlight. But that ability fades with age, leaving older adults at risk of vitamin D deficiency.
Vitamin D is also found in some foods, including milk fortified with vitamin D, cod liver oil, salmon, tuna, and eggs.
Participants in Broe's study were 89 years old, on average. Most were white women. All lived at a long-term care facility run by Hebrew SeniorLife.
Sixty-two percent of the group had fallen in the year before the study.
When the study started, 63% of participants were taking a multivitamin. But 57% of the entire group -- and 54% of those taking a multivitamin -- had low blood levels of vitamin D.
Vitamin D Supplements
Participants were randomly assigned to take vitamin D or an empty pill (placebo) for five months.
Those taking vitamin D were given one of four daily doses: 200 international units (IU), 400 IU, 600 IU, or 800 IU.
No one knew what dose they were taking, or whether they were taking the placebo.
Participants were allowed to keep taking multivitamins during the study, if they wanted to, but the researchers didn't supply anyone with multivitamins.
Currently, the Institute of Medicine says 600 IU of vitamin D per day is "adequate" for men and women 71 or older.
Residents' Falls
The nursing home was required to keep records of residents' falls. During the five-month study, 61 participants (59%) suffered falls.
The group taking 800 IU of vitamin D daily was the only one to show a reduced fall risk. They were 72% less likely to fall during the study period than those taking the placebo.
None of the other vitamin D doses were associated with reduced falls.
These results held when the researchers took age, BMI (body mass index), and other factors into account.
People can fall for many reasons; and it's not certain vitamin D was the sole reason for the drop in falls for residents taking 800 IU of vitamin D daily.
While the data doesn't show how much vitamin D participants got from their diet or sunshine, intake from those sources was probably "minimal," write the researchers.
Too Much of a Good Thing?
Vitamin D is one vitamin you shouldn't overdo. The body stores vitamin D in fat, and it can be unhealthy to let too much of the vitamin build up in the body.
The tolerable upper limit for daily vitamin D intake is 2,000 IU for adults 19 and older, according to Institute of Medicine standards.
Sunshine and diet are much less likely to cause excessive vitamin D levels than supplements, unless you're consuming lots of cod liver oil, according to the Office of Dietary Supplements, part of the National Institutes of Health.
None of the nursing home residents had excessive vitamin D levels during the study.
SOURCES: Broe, K. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, February 2007; vol 55: pp 23-239. Office of Dietary Supplements, National Institutes of Health: "Dietary Supplement Fact Sheet: Vitamin D." News release, Blackwell Publishing.
Pregnancy Hormone May Help Treat MS
Hormone, Called Prolactin, Might Spur Repair of Nerve Damage in Multiple Sclerosis
Feb. 23, 2007 -- Prolactin, a pregnancy hormone, may repair nerve damage and might help treat multiple sclerosis (MS), Canadian researchers report.
So far, the scientists -- who work at the University of Calgary -- have only studied prolactin in female mice, not in people.
But they note that MS symptoms often ease in human pregnancy, possibly because of prolactin.
If so, prolactin could hold promise as a treatment for MS, note the researchers, who included Samuel Weiss, PhD.
In multiple sclerosis, the body's immune system attacks the fatty sheath, called myelin, that protects nerves in the brain and spinal cord.
"It was thought that during pregnancy, [women's] immune systems no longer destroyed the myelin," Weiss says in a Society for Neuroscience news release.
"But no previous study has tested whether pregnancy actually results in the production of new myelin, which may explain improvement of symptoms," Weiss adds.
Mouse Tests
Weiss and colleagues studied pregnant and virgin female mice with damage to their myelin.
They found that pregnant mice had both more prolactin and myelin-producing cells than the virgin mice.
The pregnant mice also did better at repairing their myelin damage than the virgin mice, the study shows.
Next, the scientists injected prolactin into virgin mice. Afterwards, the virgin mice boosted their number of myelin-producing cells and improved their ability to repair myelin damage.
If the findings are confirmed in further studies, prolactin may prove useful in treating MS, note Weiss and colleagues.
However, they suggest that since prolactin can increase inflammation, it might need to be combined with anti-inflammatory medicine.
The study appears in The Journal of Neuroscience.
SOURCES: Gregg, C. The Journal of Neuroscience, Feb. 21, 2007; vol 27: pp 1812-1823.
What Can you do to Minimize the effects of Forgetfulness, Alzheimers or Dementia?