Neurology Diagnostics

Archive for the ‘Alzheimer’s Disease’ Category

Beyond that produces intensely flavored with curry seasoning meals are neuroprotective properties, especially against Alzheimer’s.

The word “curry” derives from kari, which means “sauce” in Tamil, one of the dialects spoken in India. Curry is a mixture of different spices used in cooking Pakistani, Indian and China. The spices used are turmeric and ginger, which gives the product its characteristic yellow color. Other spices that are used quite often are garlic, Ceylon cinnamon, onion, coriander, cumin, fennel, nutmeg, white pepper and black.
Curry has antioxidant

Curry has become very popular not only in Asian countries but around the world and is especially used by English and Dutch cooks. Some of the dishes that can be flavored with it are the rice and curry, the curry chicken , turkey steak tomato and curry, cold apple soup with curry, eggplant curry, pork chops, curry, pineapple with curry cream … All of them taste great.

Longa Turmeric is a plant of Asian origin that has a high content of antioxidants, the rhizome of this plant is extracted curry, which is why this species may have a role in cardiovascular disease prevention. In laboratory animals has been seen that curcumin can reduce blood cholesterol levels and prevent the formation of atherosclerotic plaques.

Curry is good for the brain

Researchers at the David Geffen School of Medicine, Los Angeles, and the Human Biomolecular Research Institute, San Diego, have shown that curry may have beneficial effects in preventing the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. What does this protective effect could be due? Probably the bisdemethoxycurcumin, an active ingredient found in curcuminoids, a natural substance that is present in turmeric root.

Using blood samples from patients with Alzheimer’s disease, scientists have determined that bisdemethoxycurcumin can encourage macrophages to destroy the protein beta amyloid, which is responsible for neuronal death in people with this disease. This substance could become useful in the manufacture of a vaccine against the disease.

Apparently the benefits of curry on health is not achieved with consumption once a week, but with the intake of three times a week, along with a healthy diet. As a curious note that the curry is consumed in high quantities in India , a country with very low levels (1%) of patients with Alzheimer’s .

Other foods good for the brain

Curry is not the only food that has proven to be good for preventing disease Alzheimer’s , has also been seen with vitamin E-rich foods (eg olive oil), vitamin C (eg kiwi, orange, etc. .) or rich in essential fatty acids.

In short, the curry may have a preventive role in the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and may be the basis of a vaccine against this disease.

High concentrations of blood plasma protein called clusterin may influence the development, severity and progression of Alzheimer’s disease, British researchers report.

Conducted clinical evaluations and brain imaging scans, and blood plasma samples from people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, mild cognitive impairment (a precursor of Alzheimer’s) or without dementia.

The team from the Institute of Psychiatry King’s College London found an association between clusterin levels in blood plasma and severity of Alzheimer’s disease, its rapid advance, and atrophy in a brain area called the entorhinal cortex, which has to do with memory.

The researchers also concluded that high levels of clusterin in blood plasma were associated with increased beta-amyloid (a protein that forms the brain plaques associated with Alzheimer’s) in the medial temporal lobe of the brain. The study appears in the June issue of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.

Previous studies have suggested that clusterin belongs to a family of proteins called chaperones extracellular regulating the formation and elimination of amyloid, the researchers said. “Although these findings do not support the clinical utility of plasma clusterin concentration as independent biomarker of Alzheimer’s disease reveal a robust peripheral signature of this amyloid chaperone protein that responds to the key features of the pathology of the disease” , wrote in a news release from the publisher.

“Our findings clearly implicate clusterin, and could well be other proteins in plasma related to the disease process. In fact, our previous studies and those of other researchers suggest that this is so,” they concluded. “These findings could have broader implications for the identification of other chaperone proteins in the plasma amilodea, both as potential biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease and as targets.

The investigation of Alzheimer’s disease continues. From an herb or olive oil to the study of a vaccine.

The cure for Alzheimer’s disease still take time to be available. Current goals are to delay symptoms, quality of life to the person concerned and as soon as possible, it becomes a chronic disease.
Usefulness of the drug

A key aspect to consider once diagnosed Alzheimer’s disease, is that the sooner treatment is applied, the more likely that the brain retains its skills and the disease progresses more slowly. It is known that the medication does not stop the disease, but it does serve to slow their development and that the person concerned shall enjoy greater autonomy for longer and may continue doing many of their daily activities.

During the time that the drugs are effective, while the brain is not badly damaged, get prevent the breakdown of a brain chemical: the acetylcholine , which is essential to keep thinking and memory. Other drugs prevent the substance called glutamate to accumulate too much, because that would cause neuronal damage.

Currently there are over ten new drugs being studied, and although there reason to hope that improve the current treatment, specialists are cautious and remember that not all patients will get the same benefit.
Cognitive stimulation therapy

Must be applied together with the appropriate medication, because they make many Alzheimer’s patients do not forget how to perform most basic activities. When the impairment is still mild, these therapies are usually used in day centers attending to patients. Sometimes they are also taught to immediate family.
Amazing advances

Oleic acid. It is the main component of olive oil may help in the future to control diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer . In the Universities of Alicante Balearic Islands and is being implemented to study the development of fatty acids that serve to prevent both conditions. Apparently, oleic acid can be used for the development and survival of neurons, this being of paramount importance for Alzheimer’s disease, since neurons are precisely those that are deteriorating.

The elderly and middle-aged with high cholesterol would have greater possibility that they form the brain protein deposits associated with Alzheimer’s. The results do not prove that high cholesterol is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, researchers said.

However, opening the possibility that help keep cholesterol under control, over the years, preventing the brain plaques in the future, said Dr. Kensuke Sasaki, Kyushu University, Japan, who participated in the study. That would also affect the risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

The authors examined brain tissue at autopsy study of 147 Japanese adults who died between 1998 and 2003. A third had been diagnosed with dementia before dying. All patients had controlled cholesterol in 1988, when they were between 40 and 79, and had no symptoms of dementia.
The team found that the “plates” brain (abnormal deposits that form between nerve cells) were more common in the fourth of people with higher cholesterol levels in 1988. In this group, 85 percent of those with 5.8 mmol / L of cholesterol (about 224 mg / dL) or more plaques had developed, according to autopsy results, compared with 62 percent of those with lower levels (186 mg / dL or less) of total cholesterol at baseline.
The team then considered other factors associated with Alzheimer’s, such as age, having had a stroke or carry a genetic variation associated with evil. Found that those who showed higher levels of cholesterol were almost 25 times more likely to have brain plaque than those with low cholesterol, according to autopsy results.
It is unknown why cholesterol would be associated with Alzheimer’s and now the brain plaques. But Constantine Lyketsos, responsible for Memory and Alzheimer’s Treatment Center, the Johns Hopkins University, and was not involved in the study, said what he believes to be the major possibility: that cholesterol is a sign of vascular disease generally affects the brain.
This study considered Lyketsos, provides direct evidence to analyze two biological measures: levels of blood cholesterol and the amount of plaque in the brain.
Alzheimer’s affects 26 million people in the world and experts estimate that as the population ages, the number could reach 66 million by 2030. In general, experts recommend that people control their cholesterol at a healthy weight, exercise, dietary changes and, if necessary, medication.
The desired level of total cholesterol below 200 mg / dL to reduce the risk of developing heart disease.

There are about 600 diseases that affect the brain. And it is striking that those who are more dangerous to our brain that tell us more. Parkinson, for example, takes 18,000 lives each year. This disease has taught us how the brain controls our body.

Knowledge of the mechanisms of memory are clear in Alzheimer’s disease. And by stroke researchers learned to keep isolated the damaged brain cells. In the most serious diseases are the best opportunities for science.

Read the rest of this entry »

A major effort has made several research groups to synthesize a vaccine available to prevent Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

In simple terms, the idea is to create in a laboratory, a protein that is very similar to proteins that normally are deposited in the brain of the sick patient and eventually cause the symptoms of dementia.

By exposing a healthy individual and any risk factors, such as a history of having close relatives with the EA, it creates antibodies created in the lab and also with proteins that are characteristic of AD.

This would prevent therefore, protein synthesis and deposition years later that will cause the first symptoms of dementia.

Already there have been many scientific studies and is expected to close in the future hopefully be approved this vaccine, which will undoubtedly be a great addition to the treatment of AD.

Galantamine: Another Alternative for the Treatment of Alzheimer

Soon more will be available in the Chilean market the drug Galantamine (Razadyne ER in the U.S.) and is part of the therapeutic alternatives for Alzheimer’s disease with early or intermediate. Read the rest of this entry »

Arthritis drug yields impressive results in the treatment of Alzheimer’s

Impressive are the findings derived from a study on Alzheimer’s by a team of U.S. scientists from the Universities of California at Los Angeles and Southern California: the application of a drug for arthritis managed to turn “in ten minutes” some signs of disease in a patient of 81 years.

The trade publication Journal of neuroinflammation (Journal of Neuroinflammation) reports that physicians applied to the spine of the patient an injection of Etanercept, a drug used to relieve pain and inflammation associated with rheumatoid arthritis.

The professionals said the patient, who was just beginning to exhibit the symptoms of the disease, could remember the name of your doctor along with the date and place where he was, but ten minutes before had been unable to do so.

However, Dr. Anthony Alvarez, the Biomedical Research Centre in Spain, called for caution with the subject.

“We must be cautious whenever we speak of the experience of a single patient,” he told the BBC the professional currently working on a vaccine against Alzheimer’s disease.

Notes also that it is necessary to show that the drug is safe and runs on a significant number of patients.