January 14, 2014

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

Paul Stoffels and Alan Leshner call for increased research and development partnerships to battle Alzheimer's and other diseases, USA2 Chairman George Vradenburg to report on the G8 Dementia Summit, and the latest research on the link between sleep and neurological health (read more). 

Must reads

  • A January 13, 2014 Politico opinion piece by Paul Stoffels and Alan Leshner called for increased public-private partnerships to address "today’s major health care challenges, including Alzheimer’s, diabetes, heart disease and cancer." According to the authors, "In the global marketplace, rapidly turning ideas into products requires an open approach to innovation: Increasingly, corporate scientists must collaborate with university researchers and even competitors...Such efforts are critical in the biomedical field, as 67 million Americans deal with high blood pressure, 13 million live with cancer, 5 million suffer from Alzheimer’s disease and the number diagnosed with diabetes more than tripled between 1980 and 2011."Paul Stoffels, M.D., is chief scientific officer and worldwide chairman of pharmaceuticals at Johnson & Johnson and Alan I. Leshner is chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
  • A January 11, 2014 New York Times opinion piece by Maria Konnikova highlighted the link between sleep and neurological health. According to Konnikova, "While we don’t know whether sleep loss causes neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, or the disease itself leads to sleep loss...a 'classic chicken-and-egg' problem — we do know that the two are closely connected...In a society that is not only chronically sleep-deprived but also rapidly aging, that’s bad news. “It’s unlikely that poor sleep as a child would actually cause Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s,” says Dr. Veasey, “but it’s more likely that you may shift one of those diseases by a decade or so. That has profound health and economic implications.” [text attached]
  • A January 13, 2014 House Committee on Foreign Affairs post announced that USA2 Chairman George Vradenburg will speak on a panel reporting on the G-8 Dementia Summit on January 15, 2014 at 2PM EST. Chairman Smith on the hearing: "The numbers of people stricken with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia in the United States and countries around the world are rising at an alarming rate,” said Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04), chairman of the House global health subcommittee and co-chairman of the Alzheimer’s Disease caucus. “Last month's G8 Dementia Summit looked at the U.S. strategy for addressing this looming health crisis, and our hearing will examine the results of that meeting and their implications for U.S. Alzheimer’s programs and health-related foreign policy." The webcast can be seen here: http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/hearing/subcommittee-hearing-report-g-8-dementia-summit