RESEARCH AND SCIENCE

A January 23, 2019 New Scientist article pointed to gum disease as a potential cause of Alzheimer’s. Porphyromonas gingivalis, the key bacteria in chronic gum disease, has been found after death in the brains of people with AD, however causality had not previously been established. According to the article, “In the new study, Cortexyme have now reported finding the toxic enzymes – called gingipains –  that P. gingivalis uses to feed on human tissue in 96 per cent of the 54 Alzheimer’s brain samples they looked at, and found the bacteria themselves in all three Alzheimer’s brains whose DNA they examined.” Also covered by Newsweek, Science Alert, and others.

DISPARITIES SPOTLIGHT

A January 24, 2019 News Medical Life Sciences article reported that an International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry study of people with dementia in the UK found that those from minority ethnic backgrounds, notably Asian and black, had lower cognitive scores, and were younger when they were diagnosed, than their white counterparts. According to the article, “The study's authors noted that there is a need to understand these inequalities, to see if dementia prevention initiatives should be tailored by ethnic group and to ensure dementia diagnosis across all ethnic groups is obtained as early as possible.”

YOUTH FOCUS

According to a January 22, 2019 NJ.com article, the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America will award teens up to $5,000 in college scholarship funding through their Teens For Alzheimer’s Awareness Scholarship Essay contest. The essays should describe how AD has affected their lives, and how they will make a difference in the fight against Alzheimer’s. The deadline is February 15, 2019. Enter the contest here.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

A January 24, 2019 Asian Scientist article highlighted a group of South Korean researchers who discovered how inflammation inhibits autophagy in the brain’s immune cells, where cells rid themselves of unwanted contents. They found that microglia with impaired autophagy are incapable of decomposing amyloid β, leading to Alzheimer’s disease progression. According to lead researcher Professor Yu Seong-Woon, “Although nerve inflammation always increases if one contracts a degenerative brain disease, the link between inflammation and suppression of autophagy in microglia was unclear prior to our study. If we focus on brain tissue cells and keep researching the relationship between nerve inflammation and autophagy, we will be able to take a step closer to developing treatments and new strategies for curing brain diseases.”  

REGIONAL HIGHLIGHTS

A January 23, 2019 Long Island Business News article pointed to a shortage of quality dementia care, which is the fastest growing subset of elder care. Scott Burman is a partner at Garden City-based Engel Burman Group, which owns and operates 16 assisted living facilities in the New York area. According to the article, “In the 1990s, he said, “people would move into assisted living and then, as they developed cognitive issues, they would move to the part of the facility that offers dementia care. But now we find people need dementia care when they first come to us. We’re building dementia sections larger and larger, because there is such a surge in demand for the product. We also recently built our first center devoted exclusively to serving residents with Alzheimer’s and dementia-related illnesses in Lake Success.”

CLINICAL TRIAL SPOTLIGHT

(ICYMI) A January 9, 2019 Being Patient article by Jessica Langbaum, PhD of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Registry at the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute wrote from her personal experience with her grandfather’s Alzheimer’s disease. According to Langbaum, “Alzheimer’s research has a problem finding volunteers: An estimated 80 percent of research studies don’t complete enrollment on time because they can’t recruit enough people… You can help change that. To help accelerate enrollment, I am leading two recruitment registries to connect people with available research opportunities in their communities—the Alzheimer’s Prevention Registry and GeneMatch.” Langbaum serves on the AD-PCPRN Registries and Clinical Trials Advisory Council, an UsAgainstAlzheimer’s initiative.