USA2 SPOTLIGHT

eBriefing from the Global CEO Initiative on Alzheimer’s Disease and The New York Academy of Sciences: Innovative Funding Models for Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia. 

MUST READS

A March 3, 2015 Huffington Post article highlighted the impact of declining research funding on young scientists. According to the article, “Collins warned that these trends would convince a future generation of researchers that their field was inhospitable. Fewer young scientists would mean fewer scientific discoveries, making it more difficult for companies to profit and for public health authorities to guard against diseases…Sobering budgetary assessments are nothing new from Collins, who heads the federal government's main funder of biomedical research. He has been preaching the need for stable NIH budgeting for years, and has amplified those warnings since the spending cuts brought about by sequestration went into effect in 2013. NIH has lost about 22 percent of its purchasing power since 2003. In fiscal 2014, it was appropriated $30.1 billion. A two-year bipartisan budget agreement brought a temporary reprieve. But that agreement runs out in September.

CAREGIVING

A March 3, 2015 Los Angeles Times article profiled caregiving expert Teepa Snow and her “positive approach” to Alzheimer’s caregiving. According to Snow, “People with Alzheimer's are trying to deal with what they have lost. We need to take a step back and realize they aren't crazy. Our job is to figure out the reason why they are doing what they do, then modify or change things to make the situation better.”

RESEARCH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY

A March 4, 2015 Ledger-Enquirer article reported that “Emory University's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center is to receive $25 million to fund advanced research into the early detection of the disease.” According to the article, “The money from the Goizueta Foundation is meant to change the way Alzheimer's disease is detected and treated at the most basic level. Center director Dr. Allan Levey says the gift will allow his staff to uncover ways to predict Alzheimer's disease long before signs appear. He says that can help develop new treatments and prevent the disease in the future.”

A March 3, 2015 Reuters article reported that “Alzheimer's researchers at Harvard for the first time are scanning the brains of healthy patients for the presence of a hallmark protein called tau, which forms toxic tangles of nerve fibers associated with the fatal disease.” According to the article, “The new scans are part of a large clinical trial called Anti-Amyloid Treatment in Asymptomatic Alzheimer's or A4, the first designed to identify and treat patients in the earliest stages of Alzheimer's, before memory loss begins…Dr. Reisa Sperling of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who is leading the 1,000-patient trial, said tau is commonly found in small amounts in healthy people over age 70, but it is generally confined to an area of the brain called the medial temporal lobe.”

A March 3, 2015 New York Times Well blog post reported that Gout, a form of authorities, might be linked to a reduced risk for Alzheimer’s. According to the article, “Those with gout, whether they were being treated for the condition or not, had a 24 percent lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease.The reason for the connection is unclear. But gout is caused by excessive levels of uric acid in the blood, and previous studies have suggested that uric acid protects against oxidative stress. This may play a role in limiting neuron degeneration.”