Must reads and watch 

• An October 4, 2013 WCAI (NPR) article reported on a new Alzheimer's drug study designed to cut down on AmyloidBeta. According to the article, "They're going to treat people with an experimental drug - one designed to cut down on a protein called AmyloidBeta, which forms sticky plaques in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. The people they're going to give the drug to don't have any noticeable symptoms of the disease. In fact some of them would likely never even develop it…Across the Alzheimer's field, researchers are paying close to the A4 study as a test of the increasingly-popular hypothesis that the way to stop Alzheimer's is to put it off. Delay it, slow it down to prevent it. The drug used in A4 works by binding to amyloid of a certain size and clearing it out of the body before it turns toxic. The medicine was tested before, and while safe, it didn't really help people in later stages of the disease. But for people with mild symptoms, the disease seemed to slow down."

• An October 4, 2013 TheConversation.com article highlighted two studies that demonstrate the rate of dementia is declining. According to the article, "It appears that brain function in the elderly is malleable, and there is a trend toward improvement. And it seems that, at least over the early part of the 20th century, people born later survive to a riper age with better brain function. This is consistent with what has been previously described as the Flynn effect, which is named after Jim Flynn. He showed that there had been a substantial and sustained increase in measured intelligence over the last 100 years. It’s likely that we will continue to reap the benefits of improvement in education and health in the last century in the form of better brain health as our populations age."

• An October 3, 2013 AlJazeera America broadcast segment highlighted the rising deaths and costs of Alzheimer's.