June 09, 2017

Today’s Top Alzheimer’s News

MUST READS

In a June 9, 2017 The New York Times article, Philip S. Gutis tells his own story of his early onset Alzheimer’s diagnoses at age 54, and how his pets are helping him cope. He writes, “As an introvert, I have not always had the best people skills, but my ability to connect with animals has never flagged. Many of my best memories involve animals. But now things are changing… The thing I know about my pets is that they will always remember me.”

A June 9, 2017 Harvard Business Review article spotlighted the need for productive, progressive, collaborative relationships between clinical medicine and the biopharmaceutical industry in order to solve the big public health issues of the day, including Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, and metabolic and infectious disease. However, progress is held back over conflict of interest concerns that have resulted in overly extreme preventative policies. It is time for these policies to be revamped.

According to a June 8, 2017 PR Newswire article, new criteria and biomarker tests are allowing for early-stage diagnosis of dementia with Lewy bodies. "There is now a consensus amongst experts on DLB that certain symptoms, specifically REM sleep behavior disorder, and tests results, formal sleep study and brain and cardiac imaging, are highly predictive for the presence of Lewy bodies in the brain at autopsy. It is hoped that these new criteria will allow clinicians to diagnose DLB earlier in the disease and thus improve treatment and management for this devastating disease," said Jim Leverenz, Scientific Advisory Council Chair, Lewy Body Dementia Association.

INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT

A June 8, 2017 Alzheimer’s News Today article focused on ImmunoBrain Checkpoint’s groundbreaking research into treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. The treatment blocks the PD-1/PD-L1 immune checkpoint pathway. Drugs targeting this pathway already are used in cancer treatment. Neutralizing PD-1 in T-cells through the use of antibodies clears amyloid-beta plaques from the brain in mice with Alzheimer’s.

EVENTS AND RESOURCES

From the National Institute on Aging/NIH, share this infographic and help spread the word about what memory problems are normal and not.