March 20, 2014

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

South Carolina's Alzheimer's crisis, more on the impact of Alzheimer's on women, Trish Vradenburg highlights dynamic octogenarians and nonagenarians, and the FDA's new chief scientist highlights the agency's efforts to fight diseases like Alzheimer's (read more).  
 
 

Must reads and watch 

  • A March 20, 2014 The State (NC) article reported on South Carolina's growing Alzheimer's problem. According to the article, "South Carolina has seen a 17.9 percent increase in the number of people 65 and older estimated to have the disease since 2000, growing from 67,000 cases that year, the Alzheimer’s Association reports. It could reach 120,000 by 2025 as the population ages, according to the group. And as the state with the 10th highest death rate from the disease, it’s seen an 80 percent increase in mortality since 2000, with 1,570 people dying of Alzheimer’s in 2010."
  • A March 19, 2014 NBC News broadcast segment highlighted the impact of Alzheimer's on women. 
  • A March 18, 2014 Huffington Post blog post by USA2 co-founder Trish Vradenburg highlighted octogenarians and nonagenarians "still kicking." According to Vradenburg, "We need to ramp up the fight against Alzheimer's so that there are more women in the world like Johanna. Learn more and join our movement: www.usagainstalzheimers.org."
Research and science
  • A March 19, 2014 FDA Voice Blog post by Dr. Stephen Ostroff, the agency's new chief scientist, underscored the vital role the FDA plays in tackling diseases like Alzheimer's. According to Dr. Ostroff, "Transformative changes in society and technology over the past several decades have created numerous opportunities to improve public health. They’ve also created challenges affecting FDA-regulated products and the way FDA conducts its operations. For example, globalization is bringing an increasing volume of foods and drugs to our shores, often produced in countries that may not have our high standards of regulatory oversight. New areas of science and rapidly evolving technologies are showing real promise in our ability to prevent and cure some of today’s biggest killers, such as diabetes, cancer, and Alzheimer’s."
  • A March 19, 2014 The New York Times article reported that researchers at Harvard University have identified a protein called REST that flips genes on and off and naturally increases during aging; REST represses genes involved in Alzheimer’s disease. According to Li-Huei Tsai, director of the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,“This is an extremely important study…This is the first study that is really starting to provide a plausible pathway to explain why some people are more vulnerable to Alzheimer’s than other people.”