May 23, 2013

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

Federal cuts to medical research, Alzheimer's and loneliness, and the passing of Australian Alzheimer's advocate Hazel Hawke (read more)

 
Must reads
  • A May 23, 2013 Research!America Blog post reported "The U.S. House Appropriations committee approved a spending bill for FY14 that slashes the Labor, Education, Health and Human Services bill to its lowest since 1998 when adjusted for inflation. The bill makes deep cuts for medical research and other domestic programs." According to the post, "The proposed funding is 18.6 percent below 2013 funding levels under sequestration, 22.2 percent below the original appropriations for FY13. These cuts will jeopardize medical innovation and programs that protect Americans’ health."
  • A May 23, 2013 Atlantic Cities blog post reported on the science of loneliness and the connection between the feeling and diseases like ALzheimer's. According to the article, "Researchers have shown that loneliness—more formally, the want of intimacy—exacerbates a host of ailments, including Alzheimer’s disease, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, neurodegenerative diseases, and even cancer. The share of Americans who report "not feeling close to people" at any given time is 30 percent and growing, and deemed by some a social health crisis."
 
International 
  • A May 23, 2013 Australian Broadcast Corporation article and video clip reported that Hazel Hawke, advocate and wife of the former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke, died of Alzheimer's. According to the article, "In 2003, she again put her life in the spotlight, appearing on Australian Story where she revealed she had Alzheimer's disease. She set up a research fund and became the face of the disease." 
 
Memory
  • A May 20, 2013 New York Times article profiled 94 year old neuropsychologist Brenda Milner and her work unlocking the mysteries of how the human memory works. According to the article, "In many ways, the Obama administration’s new plan to map the human brain has its origins in the work of Brenda Milner, the neuropsychologist whose detailed observations of an amnesia patient in the 1950s showed how memory is rooted in specific regions of the brain."