August 23, 2016

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

USA2 SPOTLIGHT 

An August 22, 2016 Bloomberg article about presidential plans to stop Alzheimer’s quoted UsAgainstAlzheimer’s co-founder George Vradenburg. According to Vradenburg, “There are two candidates, both of whom are supportive of tackling this disease. One has provided a precise plan for Alzheimer's funding, and the other has expressed a commitment but as of yet has submitted no plan. The Alzheimer's community—and we call ourselves the Alzheimer's nation—will base our choices on the precision of the plan.”


MUST READS

An August 22, 2016 The Washington Post article reported that “Some older women who take calcium supplements may face an increased risk of developing dementia, a small study suggests.” According to the article, “The heightened risk appears limited to women who have had a stroke or suffer from disorders that affect blood flow to the brain, researchers report in the journal Neurology..Still, this observational study doesn’t prove that calcium supplements directly cause dementia, Kern added by email. Even for women who have had a stroke, it’s too soon to say for sure whether they should avoid calcium supplements, she noted.”

An August 22, 2016 Nature.com article highlighted President Obama’s science legacy and his big bets on biomedical science. According to the article, “It is the big initiatives that will probably form Obama’s lasting biomedical legacy, says Benjamin Corb, head of public affairs at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in Rockville, Maryland. In 2013, Obama announced the Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) initiative to map the human brain. In 2015, he unveiled the Precision Medicine Initiative, which includes an ambitious study of health records and genomic information from one million people in the United States. And in January, he introduced the Cancer Moonshot, a US$1-billion proposal to double the pace of cancer research in five years.”

An August 22, 2016 AARP.org blog post urged Congress to pass the RAISE Act. According to the article, “Passed unanimously by the U.S. Senate, the RAISE Act would develop a national strategy to support family caregivers, bringing together stakeholders from the public and private sectors — including state and local officials, health care and long-term services and support providers, employers, federal agencies, older adults, persons with disabilities and family caregivers themselves – to identify specific actions communities, providers, government, employers and others can take, including with respect to:promoting person and family-centered care in a range of settings; assessment and service planning involving both care recipients and family caregivers; information, education, referral and care coordination; and respite options so caregivers can reset and recharge.”


RESEARCH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

An August 22, 2016 TheVerge.com article reported that “Scientists have created a nanoparticle that is just the right size to target the overactive brain receptors that cause neurological disease, while leaving the rest of the receptors we need alone.” According to the article, “ This super-precise method could reduce the side effects of a common Alzheimer’s drug so doctors can prescribe it to help people during earlier stages of the condition.”

An August 22, 2016 Alzforum.org article reported on developments in the use of Tau PET to study Alzheimer’s. According to the article, “Even as tau imaging forever changes the way researchers study Alzheimer’s disease and other tauopathies, the first batch of PET tracers are plagued by problems such as noisy data and off-target binding.”