USA2 SPOTLIGHT 

A November 9, 2016 Nature.com article highlighted “three things are needed to turn the tide on the costliest crisis in health care.” According to the article, “One problem is visibility. Other disease communities — most notably, people affected by breast cancer and HIV/AIDS — have successfully advocated for large pots of dedicated research funding. But ‘there simply wasn’t any comparable upswell of attention to Alzheimer’s’, says George Vradenburg, chair and co-founder of UsAgainstAlzheimer’s, a non-profit organization in Chevy Chase, Maryland.”

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A November 9, 2016 U.S. News & World Report article highlighted the “The Importance of Caring for Yourself While Caring for Someone With Alzheimer’s.” According to the article, “Why is this important? Because caregiver burnout is real and can inadvertently lead to losing the very person providing care due to their own neglected health, financial strains and other accompanying problems. In a recent study, caregiver "strain" was associated with a 63 percent increased mortality risk, even after controlling for presence of cardiovascular disease and sociodemographic factors. Caregivers might even be at higher risk of cognitive impairment or dementia than non-caregivers.”

A November 9, 2016 The Bismarck Tribune article reported that “A new study shows that MRI brain scans can help doctors tell which people with certain thinking and memory problems might go on to develop dementia with Lewy bodies rather than Alzheimer's disease.”

A November 9, 2016 Medical Xpress article reported that “Synapses, the place where brain cells contact one another, play a pivotal role in the transmission of toxic proteins…[allowing] neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's to spread through the brain.”

A November 8, 2016 Forbes.com article reported that “As it turns out, sugar is not so sweet. Besides causing obesity and diabetes, eating a diet saturated with sugar is linked to a number of abnormal brain functions, including poor memory and cognitive activities.”