MUST READS

A July 13, 2016 Health Canal article reported that “In research findings just released in Nature’s Scientific Reports journal, Flinders University experts as part of a high-level US research team at the Institute of Molecular Medicine (IMM) and University of California, Irvine (UCI) have made a successful vaccine formulation that targets the abnormal beta-amyloid and tau proteins that signal Alzheimer’s disease.”

A July 12, 2016 NexAvenue.org article (via Philadelphia Inquirer) by former sports columnist Bill Lyon chronicles his “struggle with dementia.” According to Lyon, “Our son John, who already had our power of attorney and our living wills, is now in charge. There was a twinge of — well, of what exactly I don’t know — when we made the transfer. But almost immediately I felt a sense of enormous relief. The checkbook is balanced. The bills are paid on time. And that dark cloud of dreading another round of check-writing and bill-paying has been lifted. I’m free. And now when the smooth talkers call to tell me I have won a sweepstakes lottery I never entered and all I need to do to collect my prize is give them my Social Security number, I sic ’em on Al [Alzheimer’s].”

A July 12, 2016 TownHall.com article reported that Bill Gates expressed concerns with the possibility of government drug price-setting. According to Gates, “The drug companies are turning out miracles and we need their R&D budgets to stay strong. They need to see that opportunity…For things like Alzheimer’s, they can reduce medical costs so dramatically and improve the human condition, and the pharmaceutical companies have been great partners of our foundation. When we need help in doing science they are unique in what they can do.”

RESEARCH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

A July 12, 2016 The Globe and Mail article reported that Weston Brain Institute “has committed $50-million to neurodegenerative research and funded more than 90 research proposals, making it Canada’s largest not-for-profit funder in the field.”

A July 12, 2016 UPI.com article reported that “Researchers at the University of Minnesota found differences in patterns of light reflection off the retina changed progressively in experiments with mice as they developed Alzheimer's disease, suggesting it can be detected long before symptoms are apparent to patients or doctors.”

A July 12, 2016 Vanderbilt University article reported that a “Vanderbilt study shows people with Alzheimer’s have lower ability to perceive pain.” According to the article, “People with Alzheimer’s disease don’t perceive pain as readily as healthy older adults, and this may lead to delays and underreporting of pain. This alteration in pain detection may be one reason that people with Alzheimer’s disease and pain tend to be undermedicated and suffer unnecessarily, a trans-institutional group of Vanderbilt researchers reported recently in BMC Medicine.”