March 09, 2015

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

USA2 SPOTLIGHT

Tune in to our March 12, 2015 Alzheimer’s Talks! Dr. Newport, along with USF Health Byrd Alzheimer's Institute Assistant Director for Clinical Research Jill Smith, will be joining our March Alzheimer’s Talks to discuss the trial. The USF study examines whether ketone bodies, a substance produced when the body breaks down coconut oil, can improve memory in mild to moderate Alzheimer’s. Sign up here. 

A March 7, 2015 NPR edition of Inside Alzheimer’s highlighted USA2 partner and patient advocate Greg O’Brien’s wife Mary Catherine. According to the article, “When Greg was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's five years ago, Mary Catherine had already started to notice little differences in his behavior, she says. Now, as his symptoms continue to worsen, she takes a moment to reflect on how the disease is changing their marriage, sometimes in unexpected ways.”


MUST READ OPINIONS 

A March 8, 2015 Philly.com opinion piece by Dr. Jason Karlawish urged stakeholders to think of Alzheimer’s as a public health challenge. According to Karlawish, “Monitoring will reach into spaces we normally do not think of as medical. Cars can be equipped to provide real-time assessment of driving performance. A study of thousands of adults' financial transactions such as credit card balance transfers found that older adults were more likely than those in middle age to make poor financial decisions. It turns out the banking and financial-services industries are sitting on valuable data about the cognitive health of older Americans. Monitoring our homes, driving, and finances is just one example of how - as we struggle to maintain our cognitive health and our autonomy if we want to live well and with our values intact - we ought to tackle Alzheimer's disease as not simply a medical challenge, but a public health one. A good story would help, too.” Jason Karlawish, M.D., is a professor of medicine, medical ethics, and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania and associate director of the Penn Memory Center.

A March 7, 2015 Boston Globe editorial called on Congress to “seize [the] chance to fund medicine’s next frontier.” According to the editorial board, “GENETIC SCIENTISTS, physicians, and other researchers have for several years been probing the unruly frontier of precision medicine. That’s the promising new approach to studying and cataloguing genetic variations linked to a particular disease, then tailoring treatments — a custom-formulated anticancer drug, for example — to attack them. It’s the medical equivalent of using a sniper to kill a single lethal enemy, as opposed to the carpet-bombing strategy of standard chemo- and radiation therapies. Now the research appears headed for the mainstream as President Obama presses Congress for a $215 million Precision Medicine Initiative. Obama’s proposal should attract bipartisan support when Congress votes on the initiative later this year. Congress should approve funding in the spirit that neither dreaded disease nor triumphant cures have a political hue…While cancer looms largest in the crosshairs, precision medicine could help doctors grapple with an array of diseases, including certain forms of diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, and even severe mental illness…Research points toward precision diagnosis and treatment as one of the most viable and promising new approaches for 21st century medicine. The initiative is a smart use of government funding and deserves support."

A March 6, 2015 Advocate opinion piece by Tony Award-winning producer Nick Demos highlighted Alzheimer’s impact on his family. According to Demos, “I’ll never forget when I telephoned my maternal grandmother and she told me she didn’t have a grandson and then hung up on me. And I still remember watching the torture of the physical pain my paternal grandmother endured…Alzheimer’s and dementia affect people no matter their race, religion, socio-economic background, or sexual orientation. Because of my family’s experience I was inspired to take action. I am a storyteller with a long theater background. I realized, however, this was a story I wanted to tell on film.”


POLITICS

A March 8, 2014 Daily Iowan article reported that Jeb Bush was asked about Alzheimer’s on a recent visit to Iowa. According to the article, “At Pizza Ranch in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Saturday, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was peppered with questions on everything from GOP strategy to Alzheimer’s funding and flooding.” According to the Daily Iowan, “A question from 15-year-old Sophia Aguirre came out of left-field for Bush. The Miss Greater Des Moines Teen, whose grandmother is living with Alzheimer’s disease, asked what he would do for the condition. Bush responded by surveying the audience on who has or knows a family member with the condition. More than a dozen hands went up in the air. He said Florida is on the leading-edge of Alzheimer’s research.” Also reported on by ABC News. Video highlight here."

A March 9, 2015 Vox article reported that former Virginia senator Jim Webb believes America should pay more attention to Alzheimer’s. According to the article, “I think we do a good job on those, and we shouldn't stop. In my readings on this, we tend to focus our work in Alzheimer's and dementia more on the treatment than on the possibility that we could have a breakthrough. It's a huge, huge problem in terms of the number of people who are involved and the amount of money that is being spent on the treatment side of it. It's kind of surprising to me that we aren't doing more.”


MINORITY IMPACT 

A March 9, 2015 The New York Times article reported on New York City’s efforts to prepare for an aging population. According to the article, “Alba Sanchez has an alarm in her house in the Bronx that goes off whenever someone opens the front door. For good measure, she has three dogs to bark, not at who is coming in but at who is going out. The security measures are for Ms. Sanchez’s mother, Alba Baez. At 91, she has Alzheimer’s disease and such nimble feet that not long ago a relative helping care for her busied herself in another room for a few minutes only to find Ms. Baez on the sidewalk, barefoot and partly unclothed. Ms. Baez’s wanderings have prompted her daughter to sleep in her room…Older New Yorkers with Alzheimer’s and other cognitive disorders who suddenly set out for destinations unknown produce close to 400 missing persons reports a year, city officials say. And advocates for older adults and some city officials say the reports warn of bigger issues: the coming rise in dementia cases as the city’s population ages and the need to prepare.”


RESEARCH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY

A March 7, 2015 New York Times article profiled Jeffrey Hammerbacher efforts to leverage data to speed up medical innovation. According to the article, “Eric Schadt, the computational biologist who recruited Mr. Hammerbacher to Mount Sinai, says the goal is to transform medicine into an information science, where data and computing are marshaled to deliver breakthroughs in the treatment of cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and other chronic diseases. Mount Sinai is only one of several major medical schools turning to data science as a big part of the future of medicine and health care.” 

A March 6, 2015 Bioscience Technology article reported that “The Michael J. Fox Foundation partnered with the Alzheimer’s Association to fund new research studying similarities across Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.” According to the article, “…the foundation announced the grant program, called Biomarkers Across Neurodegenerative Diseases (BAND), which will offer nearly $2 million for studies examining the intersection in biological and clinical symptoms of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and other brain-deteriorating diseases. Recipients of the funding will compare data across the diseases, including genetic information, brain changes detected through PET and MRI scans and symptoms such as memory problems or physical tremors.”