November 14, 2014

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

New research finds delaying Alzheimer's by five years would save society $600 billion a year by 2050 and Japan convenes global leaders to focus on dementia care, including George Vradenburg (read more). 

Must reads

  • A November 13, 2014 National Journal interactive article reported that new research finds that "If medicine gets to a point where it can just delay the onset of Alzheimer's by five years, it would save society $600 billion a year by 2050." According to the article, "According to a new analysis by the University of Southern California, the costs associated with Alzheimer's will reach $1.5 trillion by 2050, up from $307 billion in 2010. The analysis considers Medicare, Medicaid, and out-of-pocket costs as well as the costs incurred by a family member who serves as a primary caregiver....For individuals, a five-year delay would save $511,208 (measured in 2010 dollars) and would add an additional 2.7 years to their lives."
  • A November 8, 2014 Global Post article reported that global industry leaders and researchers gathered in Tokyo to focus on dementia care innovations. According to the article, "Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at the conference his administration will work on a new comprehensive strategy to boost measures to deal with the primarily age-linked disorder, but it remains to be seen whether the plan can address the needs of patients and their families…Mark Pearson, deputy director of employment, labor and social affairs at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, said Japan's weakness lies in its lack of a system that allows professionals in different fields of care to share data on a patient." Among the participants was USA2 co-chairman George Vradenburg. [Additional coverage attached]. 
Research, science, and technology 
  • A November 13, 2014 Drug Discovery & Development article reported on research advances in understanding the role of retromer in Alzheimer's development. According to the article, "Though he did not quite make the five-year prediction, in an April 2014 paper in Nature Chemical Biology, Dr. Small revealed a “pharmaceutical chaperone” for retromer, an obscure complex of proteins that acts as a clearinghouse during intracellular transport. The finding, which resulted from a decade-long collaboration, offers the potential for targeted therapy for Alzheimer’s disease as well as Parkinson’s disease. In its report of the breakthrough, Science magazine noted that, while Dr. Small’s published work has thus far been carried out only in cells, “the new results have nonetheless impressed some veterans of the Alzheimer’s field.”...The retromer breakthrough comes at a time when the mood among researchers and the public alike has darkened, as a number of large-scale drug failures around the country have raised questions about the basic hypothesis of what causes Alzheimer’s disease. But that dark mood is not universal. Investigations by Taub scientists have uncovered where the disease begins, how it spreads, and what genes are associated with it."