August 24, 2016

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

MUST READS

An August 23, 2016 Forbes.com article highlighted Eli Lilly’s efforts to treat Alzheimer’s through innovative drug development on multiple fronts. According to the article, “In fact, no one at the company had seen the data from the trial yet, says Eric Siemers, a distinguished medical fellow on the Alzheimer’s disease platform team at Lilly. Rather, scientists at Lilly determined a change of course was necessary if they were to prove that the drug fundamentally halts the course of Alzheimer’s in people with a mild form of the disease. Now, as the company prepares to wrap up the trial and analyze the data later this year, he’s optimistic the value of the change will be evident. “We want to show this is a disease-modifying drug—that it slows down the progression,” Siemers said over lunch recently in New York City. “There are no drugs that do that at this point.””

An August 23, 2016 NPR.org article profiled Japan’s “community approach to dealing with dementia.” According to the article, “Nearly 27 percent of the Japanese population is now 65 or older. And, as the number of older people grows, so does the number of people with Alzheimer's disease or other dementia. The Japanese government expects that by 2025 more than 7 million of the nation's residents will have dementia. A comprehensive plan for dealing with that expected rise in dementia cases was passed by the national government last year. But Matsudo has been providing dementia awareness training for city residents since 2010. Thousands of people have taken it. Atsuko Yoshioka conducts dementia awareness classes for the city of Matsudo. She says the sessions are brief — just 60 to 90 minutes — so she tries to customize the content for students.”


RESEARCH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

An August 23, 2016 MedPage Today article reported that “People with suspected non-Alzheimer pathophysiology (SNAP) probably aren't going to progress to Alzheimer's disease, two studies found.”

An August 23, 2016 ScienceDaily.com article reported that “Multivariate analysis of cognitive tests in Alzheimer's disease identifies five distinct groups of Alzheimer's disease patients, and suggests that multivitamins might slow progression only in certain groups.”

An August 23, 2016 MedScape.com article reported that “Modifiable risk factors, such as exercise and consuming a Mediterranean-style diet (MedDiet), can reduce amyloid plaque in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), lowering their risk for conversion to Alzheimer's disease, suggests new imaging research.”