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A recent study finds that a drug approved by the FDA to treat skin cancer in humans has reversed signs of Alzheimer’s in mice and improvements showed up quickly. Neuroscientist Gary Landreth, one of the co-authors of the study, described that on TALK OF THE NATION: SCIENCE FRIDAY last week.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

DR. GARY LANDRETH: One of the other bits in this story is that if we looked at mice, at Alzheimer’s mice, with extensive plaque deposition within their brains, what we observed was that the plaques were removed. we lost about 50 percent of the plaques within 72 hours.

CONAN: obviously, researchers hope that what works in mice will work safely in humans, but there have to be tests to make sure it works, and that it’s not dangerous. Even so, Alzheimer’s research and advocacy groups report they’re getting calls from caregivers and patients desperate to try this drug. So, doctors, are you getting pressure from patients and caregivers who don’t want to wait? 800-989-8255. Email us, . you can also join the conversation on our website. That’s at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.

Dr. Jason Karlawish is a professor of medicine and medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, where he’s also a researcher with the Alzheimer’s Disease Center. he joins us by phone from his office in Philadelphia. Nice to have you back on the program.

DR. JASON KARLAWISH: a pleasure to be here, Neal. Thank you.

CONAN: we should note this is not the first time Alzheimer’s has been cured in mice, but that not all these remedies that are effective in mice prove effective in humans.

KARLAWISH: That’s right. That’s right. We’ve made a lot of progress in treating Alzheimer’s in mice. and though we’re still striving to make similar progress in treating it in humans, nevertheless, these kinds of studies are very important and very essential before we go to humans.

CONAN: Yet, I think you could probably understand someone with Alzheimer’s or somebody treating somebody with Alzheimer’s saying tests in humans could take three, four, five years. I’m not going to be around to wait.

KARLAWISH: Yeah. I know. and that’s frustrating. but there’s – that the time to move from animal to human and then through the trials that involved humans does take several years. and there’s just simply no way, right now, the science doesn’t allow us to do it any quicker.

CONAN: Yet, it’s a drug that’s already approved for skin cancer treatments.

CONAN: It is perfectly legal for a doctor to prescribe it, off label, for something else.

KARLAWISH: Right. and that’s the challenge here. and prima facie, the question, I think, a competent clinician has to sort of ask himself, herself is, you know, when a family approaches them about this drug that’s available for another indication, is, well, what’s the data about this drug for a different indication, which is the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease? and when they look in the literature or ask their colleagues, they’ll find that there’s scant data at all, about how to dose it for the adequate safe treatment – effective treatment of a person with Alzheimer’s disease.

And essentially what’s needed is research, research to figure out what is the safe dose and what is a – is it effective? I think, though, that when a family does come to you and asks about this, there’s a deeper issue going on there, and a regional clinician ought to engage the family on what’s motivating them to ask you about this. I mean, they understand it’s risky, and probably the empathetic thing to do is to talk with them about other ways that they can channel that emotion and that willingness to take risks, like looking at the clinical trials that are available now that are going on.

CONAN: Because there are other drugs that are being tried.

KARLAWISH: Absolutely. there are several drugs in various phases of development now. and one good way to find out about those clinical trials is to reach out to the Alzheimer’s Association’s TrialMatch. the association has put together a wonderful Internet or 1-800 access database where you can put in your information and find out the kinds of clinical trials in your area that are available. I think that a family and a patient who hear about this drug and, unfortunately, find out that’s not available and not useful for treating Alzheimer’s, can instead channel that energy into looking into clinical trials that are available through Alzheimer’s Association’s TrialMatch.

CONAN: This is a skin cancer treatment. and like most cancer treatments, it is not without side effects. So those are things you have to consider too.

KARLAWISH: Well, sure, yes. but, you know, I think that as sort of almost secondary. I, you know, I don’t even know what dose you would take to see if it gets into the brains where you could then begin to measure, does it have an effect on the brain that’s positive or not? you know, I don’t mean to sound like a scientist, but that’s such a basic question that we don’t even have an answer to. So the first studies that need to be done in humans are studies that would involve a few volunteers who simply we want to get a sense of, you know, what’s the drug’s penetration into the brain, et cetera.

CONAN: Volunteers, yet people are willing to call up right now and say, sign me up.

KARLAWISH: Yeah. and again, I think we have to recognize, you know, there’s a – this is a bad disease, and there has been increasing, fortunately, recognition in the public and in – by national leaders that we need to do something about this. and these telephone calls are telling us something that, you know, people want to see that the health care systems, the NIH, the federal government are responding to their desperation. and I think we’re seeing that now. we have a national Alzheimer’s plan in place. President Obama announced a substantial increase in funding that will be available to support Alzheimer’s research. you know, we have a national network of clinical trials in place with the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study group. but quite frankly, the bottom line is really the bottom line, we need more funding to move this along.

CONAN: the research that’s been done in mice, people know these are mice specially bred for this kind of research…

CONAN: …to be as close as possible to their human counterparts, but there is still a big difference between mice and humans.

KARLAWISH: Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, you know, mouse models are just that, they’re models. They are not the disease. and, for example, these mice were modeled to have amyloid plaques. They don’t have the tau tangles that are also part of the Alzheimer’s pathology. Nonetheless, mouse models have been very valuable to give us some guidance about what may or may not be a promising intervention in humans.

But again, you know, they have their limitations, and I think this is another example of, we have to recognize both the strengths and limitations of mouse models. their strengths are they can get us data very quickly. the limitations are, you know, they have a very different way of metabolizing amyloid than humans do. their genetically engineered even to have – to develop amyloid in the first place. So there are substantial differences between mice, if you will, and men.

CONAN: and could you give us an example of a drug which appeared very promising in mice to treat Alzheimer’s that did not work out so well in humans?

KARLAWISH: Well, I think probably the – a good example that folks can look up on the Internet because it was, you know, it occurred during just not too long ago, were the earliest treatments that were developed or the drugs that were developed for removal of amyloid using immune modulation techniques, in other words, antibodies that would grab amyloid and take it out of the brain, and the earliest forms of those compounds were very promising in mice. I mean, they really cleaned up the amyloid, and you saw clear changes in the measures that we make of mouse cognition to show that their brains are doing better, like swimming through a water maze and whatnot to get a platform. though extremely promising, but, you know, when deployed in humans in the early stage trials showed some real issues with toxicity, such that the earlier compounds had to be reconfigured and reworked.

Now, fortunately, many years later – and it’s sad to say unfortunately many years later – those compounds now are very promising, and some of them are – the reworked compounds – are in the last phase of testing. and we’ll know within this calendar year whether those compounds were safe and effective in the treatment of patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease. but sadly, of course, you know, the march of science does take time. I mean, it was somewhat decade ago that those first immune-based therapies were tried that were promising in mice, but unsuccessful in humans.

CONAN: We’re talking with Dr. Jason Karlawish, the professor of medicine and medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, about a study of a skin cancer drug approved by the FDA to treat skin cancer that has also proved promising in the treatment of Alzheimer’s, but only promising in studies with mice. and as he just pointed out, there’s a long way from being effective or interesting results in mice to being safe and effective for humans. but we want to hear from doctors. Are you hearing from your patients today and in the past few weeks or so about this drug, and what do you tell them? 800-989-8255. Email: .

We have an email question from David in St. Louis: Aren’t there some skin cancer patients with Alzheimer’s? Can’t we find them and study them?

KARLAWISH: That’s a great question. David’s probably had some training in epidemiology maybe. you know, one thing one could look at would be a database that has a collection of individuals with skin cancers who have received this drug or not – and not received it, and look at whether there was a change in the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease or the progression of it, although it’d be hard to see that measured in the database, but yeah.

I mean, one of the approaches to seeing – to looking at the validity of this drug is the basic science models, obviously, which we’re seeing with mice, early phase studies in humans are obviously essential, but also let’s look at what data are in existing databases that might describe whether this drug and drugs like it might be beneficial for reducing the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. That would not be adequate data to then say we’re ready to go to humans, but it would certainly be data to add to the case that this is a promising drug and worth studying.

CONAN: Let’s go next to Anna(ph). Anna with us from Rochester in New York.

ANNA: hi. I – my grandmother died of Alzheimer’s disease last year, and my grandfather was just diagnosed last week, and I’ve had a lot of experience in the caretaking of both of them. and my question is this – I could be wrong, but I’m wondering – I remember reading about the Salk vaccine that, you know, there were a lot of questions about its safety and, you know, whether it should be used and stuff. but there was also an understanding that this was an epidemic and that it needed to be dealt with. and I guess having seen the effects of Alzheimer’s firsthand and knowing that it’s a death sentence, this is – I think I’m pretty positive that my grandmother would have given anything in the world if there had just been just a chance that something might have worked. and I guess I’ll just take your comments off the air. Thank you very much.

CONAN: OK, Anna. thanks very much. Of course, she’s referring back to the polio vaccine and the panic of the – in the 1950s when that was still so prevalent. and I guess there are some analogies that could also be made to AIDS 10 years ago or so…

CONAN: …and the great pressure put on NIH and other institutions to speed up research on AIDS drugs.

KARLAWISH: Yeah. I think those are two good histories to look at and to try and learn from. I mean, we did do studies of the polio vaccine, though. I mean, evidence was required to show that the vaccine reduced the chances of developing polio. It was not simply prescribed without data. What’s stunning and fascinating is how people stood in line to join those studies. the tremendous outpouring of national interest and enthusiasm to conquer polio using science is a model for I think just the feelings that the caller has, that there’s a lot of interests and enthusiasm out there, and we need to get people into trials.

And to get people into trials, we need to have the resources to do that. I mentioned earlier that the Alzheimer’s Association’s TrialMatch. the federal government has ClinicalTrials.gov where you can look up studies, but it’s all very well to find these studies, we have to have sites that are doing these studies, and so that gets back to a very basic resource, which is money and time. you know, we need a national investment in Alzheimer’s disease research that is equivalent to the kind of investments that we put into other devastating diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease where I think, over time, we have seen real progress.

You mentioned though, Neal, AIDS. I think AIDS is a good example also where, initially, a devastating, utterly frightening disease, still certainly is frightening, but certainly less devastating as a result of the progress made with research courtesy of both public and private investments. What’s interesting in the history of AIDS, of course, is how involved the patients were in helping to shape those clinical trials so that they gathered valid data, but at the same time also respected the rights and interests of those patients. and they made some real contributions to study design that the scientists alone were not able to make. and I think there are similar models that could be thought about with Alzheimer’s disease.

CONAN: Dr. Jason Karlawish. You’re listening TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. and let’s get to Matt, and Matt’s on the line with us from Farmington Hills in Michigan.

MATT: hi. I’m a neurologist practicing in the Detroit area, and I get a lot of patients whose family members asking me about these trials; they’ve read about it in a magazine and things like that.

CONAN: and what do you have to tell them?

MATT: Well, I have to tell them that it’s, you know, it’s just so preliminary and so early. It would be a great thing if we can possibly do anything to stem the tide of dementia. It’s such a hard disease on the patient’s family, but it’s preliminary, it’s early. a lot more trials need to be done. and for most patients studying for some dementia, I’m just concerned that by the time the drug gets out there in a commercial form it’ll be too late for the current population.

CONAN: and that’s got to be frustrating on both ends.

MATT: It’s incredibly frustrating. We’ve got a handful of drugs out there that we can use right now for dementia of Alzheimer’s type, and they don’t work particularly well.

KARLAWISH: Matt – it’s Matt, right?

KARLAWISH: Yeah. I’m curious. if one of your patients or their family member said, so if we can’t get this drug clinically, you can’t prescribe it. I understand that. I’d love to be in the study. Where would you send them? what would you do?

MATT: you know, that’s a good question. I would love to send them off to a study. I don’t really know where any are being done right now. if I could get any resources…

MATT: …I would love to do anything I can to get interested patients involved.

KARLAWISH: Exactly. So this is a great example. I mean, you’re one, you know, lone light in the wilderness, but, you know, so to speak, but, you know, let’s have HHS and Medicare and the NIH, you know, invest in creating an infrastructure where you can easily refer people to a clinical trial in the Detroit area.

MATT: Exactly. Most of the time I just tell them, well, we can call the local academic centers and see if they have anything going on because I really don’t know.

KARLAWISH: Exactly. Exactly. and, you know, and I think your story is a common story, and, you know, this is changeable. It doesn’t have to be that way.

CONAN: Matt, thanks very much for the call. Good luck.

MATT: thanks.

CONAN: and finally, Dr. Karlawish, we’re getting calls from some doctors saying, this is a very expensive drug. and, yes, it might be legal to prescribe it off-label, but no insurance company is going to pay for it.

KARLAWISH: Well, yeah. you know, money always is a great way to sort of shut down or open up the access. I think, you know, put aside the money, just the data aren’t there, so I would just, you know, it’s not even worth getting into the debate about, is it worth the money? but let’s just pretend that this drug was shown to work in people with Alzheimer’s disease, just wave a wand and clear safety and ethics (unintelligible). It does raise another challenge that Alzheimer’s disease therapeutics present to us, which is we’re talking about a very prevalent common disease, and that means, therefore, an expensive disease. It’s expensive to have it, but it’s also expensive to treat it. and if the treatment slows the progression of the disease, it’ll extend the life of the people with the disease, and, therefore, the cost of that treatment.

Well, I’m simply raising the issue of we need to attend very closely to the economics of this disease and its treatment as we do to developing better treatments for this disease.

CONAN: Dr. Karlawish, thanks very much for your time.

KARLAWISH: You’re very welcome. Thank you, Neal.

CONAN: Jason Karlawish, professor of medicine and medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania. It’s the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

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Arlowen Kuchera has suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for more than a decade, but early signs of the disease started 15 years ago with moments of confusion.

“it was devastating in the beginning,” her daughter, Kay Etter, told the Log.

Alzheimer’s is a type of dementia that causes problems with memory, thinking and behavior. Symptoms usually develop slowly and get worse over time, becoming severe enough to interfere with daily tasks. There is no current cure, but treatments for symptoms are available and research continues.

The Alzheimer’s Association Walk to end Alzheimer’s is the nation’s largest event to raise awareness and funding for Alzheimer care, support and research. the walk is held annually in more than 600 communities, including the Destin area.

The Walk to end Alzheimer’s is important because, “it makes people aware of this devastating disease,” Etter said.

This Saturday participants of all ages will meet at Baytowne Marina in Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort to join the march toward ending the disease. Registration begins at 8 a.m. and the walk begins at 9 a.m. for more information visit alz.org/walk or call 800-272-3900.

Kuchera was an Army wife. Before the disease took over, “she was stubborn and could do anything,” Etter said. “ She worked, sewed, cooked and entertained.”

But after her husband passed away, things began to change. Etter decided to move her mother from her longtime home in San Antonio, Texas, to Athens, Ga.

“She was leaving everything she knew,” Etter said. On the drive to her new home, “we stopped at a convenience store to get some water, and while I was waiting in line she decided to go wait for me outside.”

When Etter came out of the store, her mother was nowhere to be found. She looked under cars and in the field.

“I looked down the road, and I saw this nice Cadillac like my father used to drive — same color and everything,” she said. “She was sitting inside it and had locked herself in.”

Etter begged her mother to get out of the car, but Kuchera just shook her head. it wasn’t until the owner of the Cadillac came out that she was able to reach her mom.

At that point no diagnosis had been made, but “that was a sign right there that something was wrong,” she said.

A few months later, Kuchera was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and lymphoma at the same time. She’s been through radiation and cancer treatment, but Etter says the memory loss has taken its toll on her.

Her mother was staying at a facility in Georgia, but after several falls and broken bones, Etter decided she needed some “extra TLC.” They decided to move to Sandestin in July. her mother is now a resident of Crystal Bay Memory Care.

“She’s as happy as she can be, but she’s tired and worn out,” she said. “She’s an angel in waiting. She’s in a good place and ready to meet dad again.”

While Alzheimer’s is hard on the people who live with the disease, Etter says it’s also tough for the caregivers.

“it affects our lives, our travel, our marriages — everything you do,” she said. “They don’t really remember, but caregivers remember everyday.”

When it comes to predicting whether someone will have Alzheimer’s disease, newfangled diagnostic tests for the illness aren’t as good as old-fashioned quizzes of thinking and memory.

That’s the word from a study that compared different methods for identifying Alzheimer’s. the results was just published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Scientists have been looking for a scan or lab test, such as changes in particular proteins in the blood, to simplify and speed up the detection of Alzheimer’s. the goal is to be able to identify people at risk of the illness long before symptoms such as impaired thinking surface. But that goal is far from being realized.

In this study, researchers compared how well biological and cognitive tests did at identifying whether people who already had mild cognitive impairment would go on to develop Alzheimer’s. they found that two tests measuring verbal memory were the best at predicting whether someone would develop Alzheimer’s in the next two years.

In those tests, people were read a story or a list of words, and then asked to recall the information 30 minutes later. In people who are progressing to Alzheimer’s, “there’s forgetting,” neuroscientist Terry Goldberg, a co-author of the study, told Shots. “There’s an increased rate of forgetting.”

One biological marker, a brain scan that measured changes in the thickness of the middle temporal lobe, also predicted people who went on to have Alzheimer’s. Other biological markers, such as tests for telltale proteins in blood and cerebrospinal fluid, also revealed changes, but not as well. Those tests have been used in research laboratories, but aren’t being used to test for Alzheimer’s in clinical practice.

“It’s not that the biomarkers didn’t work,” says Goldberg, a professor at Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine in Manhasset, N.Y. “But when you compared them head to head, you find that the cognitive markers are the most robust.”

That means that the thinking tests can also be used for guides in designing therapies. In fact, Goldberg says, they may ultimately be more useful that the biological tests. “What you want to change is how people do in everyday life,” he says.

The trick is to diagnose mild cognitive impairment, a stage between normal forgetfulness and serious cognitive problems. It sometimes leads to Alzheimer’s, but can be caused by other diseases, too. People with MCI can be more forgetful, have trouble multitasking, and take longer to remember or decide. this study looked at 116 people with MCI who were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in two years, 204 people with MCI who didn’t get Alzheimer’s and 197 healthy people as controls.

The study used information from the Alzheimer’s Disease NeuroImaging Initiative, which is looking for ways to identify risk factors for Alzheimer’s, and techniques for early diagnosis.

The goal would then be to create treatments that could profoundly slow or even halt the disease’s process. No such treatments exist now. Earlier this year, the National Institute on Aging redefined Alzheimer’s, broadening the definition and including the fact that biomarkers can be used for early detection. But since there is no treatment that slows or halts the disease, those biomarker tests don’t help patients or families manage the disease.

wondering if people in their twenties can get alzheimer's/dementia or an early case of it with some symptoms.

Its very unlikely for Alzheimer's to affect people that young.
There are reported cases of Alzhemer's occuring in people in their 40's and even a few in their 30's, but this is pretty rare and I haven't come across any documented cases in 20-year-olds.

no your waaayyyy too young. early for alzheimer's is in late 40's early 50's. honey you either are depressed, lacking nutrients, or something else to be getting alzheimer-like symptoms

I have only seen those symptoms in young people when they use crystal meth.

. . . decision making, short-term memory loss, ability to focus on tasks, etc., many of which are the exact same symptoms of dementia and Alzheimer's but with different neurological causes), when the depression has gone far beyond just a simple mood disorder?

Dementia and depressions are two different disorders, and are diagnosed and treated differently. it important to visit a doctor, so you (or your loved one) can be diagnosed and treated properly.

Here is some information on both depression and dementia that might help you:

agingcare.com/Health-Conditio…

agingcare.com/Health-Conditio…

No is not correct.. because people who are depressed.. arent forgetful in itself. and have all neurological functions . some function better than others on different levels . and depending on the medications. the side effects of mind and cognative thinking is improved or not depending on the persons reaction to the medication.

Tricia Pruitt fears her life is about to enter a chaotic, stressful stage she is ill-equipped to manage.

She suspects a family member is showing early signs of Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia. Expecting to become the primary caregiver, Pruitt has more questions than answers, but she started learning some of those answers Wednesday at the ninth annual Lucy and John Caddell Alzheimer’s Conference.

“We all have the fear of the unknown,” Pruitt said.

Some of those unknowns include how to persuade the family member to get tested when he doesn’t want to know the results; how to keep him encouraged and maintain his quality of life when he knows he’s losing mental abilities; when does she remove him from home and put him in a nursing home; which medications can help reduce his symptoms; and how long can she expect to be his primary caregiver?

The conference, presented by the Mental Health Association in Morgan County, was attended by more than 200 health-care providers and family members dealing with dementia. Topics dealt with the loss of multiple mental functions, such as memory, language comprehension or motor skills like walking and swallowing. In extreme cases, the brain is unable to continue instructing the body to survive.

Four speakers informed attendees of the latest research and practices in the dementia and geriatric medical world. One of those was Dr. Richard Powers, who has spoken at all nine conferences to explain the basics of dementia and what help is on the horizon.

America is behind the curve in dementia research, he said, but it’s trying to catch up, especially in Alabama, as government and community leaders realize dementia is a rapidly growing work-force issue.

Surveys show Pruitt, regional vice president for the North Alabama better Business Bureau, is the typical caregiver in America, Powers said. There are 8.9 million dementia-related caregivers in the U.S., and most are females age 40 to 60 working full-time, he said.

That is a major issue because these people, often the most capable and productive in the work force, are less likely to take job promotions and more likely to reduce working hours, said Dr. Powers, medical director of the Bureau of Geriatric Psychiatry and Pathology for the Alabama Department of Mental Health.

“This is going to be a worldwide disaster if we don’t do something about it,” he said.

Pruitt said finding the time to care for her family member, whom she wanted to remain anonymous, is a key concern because she already has a busy lifestyle. her immediate issue, however, is confronting him with the possibility he has Alzheimer’s and getting him tested so she can be better prepared to meet his specific needs, she said. As she learned from Dr. Powers, different forms of dementia have different treatments and care tactics.

Pruitt only learned of the family member’s potential dementia in December after she tried to get information from his doctor. when he learned she called his doctor, he became angry and told her the doctor suspected Alzheimer’s, she said, but then he didn’t want to discuss it further.

“He’ll talk about going crazy, and he doesn’t want to be a burden,” Pruitt said. “He does it out of a caring mode. It’s not a mean thing. I try to tell him, ‘That was families do for each other. That’s love.’ ”

Pruitt said the conference didn’t ease her fears, but it did help her feel empowered to know resources are available to help.

Dr. Powers said new drugs have shown the ability to reduce the negative impacts of certain kinds of dementia, but because different forms of dementia affect different parts of the brain, more research is needed to help pinpoint treatments that don’t damage other parts of the brain.

He also said medical tests that can show early warning signs of dementia are still inconclusive, and without proper treatments for preventing the onset of dementia, he recommends against people in their 50s getting tested.

The United States invests $500 million annually for dementia research, which Dr. Powers called “pathetic,” especially compared to Europe. He did, however, say he believes the medical industry will find foolproof early detection methods and ways to prevent dementia’s onset, but not reverse it.

A problem that is ever increasing, due to more people lacking good exercise and gaining weight, is high blood pressure. often, those with this serious health problem, find that the simplest and most effective course of treatment is lifestyle and diet changes. the following tips, can help to lower your blood pressure.

One of the high blood pressure remedies that has proven itself to be effective is CoQ10, or co-enzyme Q10. your body naturally makes this enzyme and it is found throughout your body. However, the natural levels of CoQ10 in your body drop as you get older, which may explain many age related problems, including Alzheimer’s and high blood pressure. the supplement CoQ10, if added to your diet, has been shown to lower your blood pressure as well as improve your overall health. the forms available to take this supplement in vary as do the strengths available. Buying these supplements from a trusted source is very important, since they only work properly if the body absorbs them.

If you are interested in less mainstream ways of lowering your blood pressure, you may want to consider herbal medicine from India or China. Ayurvedic medicine, which comes from India has many herbs that treat high blood pressure. Chinese herbal medicines and acupuncture, when practiced by a trained professional can also help you lower your blood pressure.

Acupuncture, in spite of using needles (which are very tiny) can do quite a lot to help you relax and reduce your blood pressure. if you’re thinking about making use of Chinese and/or Indian medicine then be sure to find a qualified doctor in your area who can help you. These are ancient traditions and can be very helpful treatments for high blood pressure.

When treating your high blood pressure as well as other ailments is apple cider vinegar. it is as simple as mixing a tablespoon of raw apple cider vinegar with a teaspoon of raw honey. it helps control blood pressure when taken two to three times per day, by having a tonic effect on the body. among other things, apple cider vinegar is a good natural source of potassium, which helps to balance the sodium levels in your body. While helpful, to realistically control your high blood pressure you will need to pay attention to your diet as well as your daily habits.

Exercise is a fantastic remedy for high blood pressure. Lots of people spend too much time being sedentary and this leads to lots of problems like obesity, heart disease and high blood pressure. Talk to your doctor before you begin an exercise routine and, if you haven’t worked out regularly before, it is important to start slowly. you can start at pretty much any level and, if you like, you can start simply with a daily walk around the block. the type of exercise you do is less important than being consistent about it. getting regular exercise is a great way to both lower your blood pressure and raise your health levels.

If you smoke, you need to quit: this is another great way to lower your blood pressure. Smoking has lots of risks including lung cancer and other lung related issues. In addition to hardening your arteries and creating blockages smoking has been proven to contribute to high blood pressure. it has been proven that it’s never too late to quit smoking, and you can start to see improvements soon after you stop. Quitting smoking is difficult, of course, and the longer you’ve done it the harder it will be, but it is worth the effort in the long run as long as you lower your blood pressure and improve the rest of your health.

Pregnancy is another reason to seek medical attention if your blood pressure gets too high or spikes quickly. Blood pressure medication can reduce your blood pressure to safe levels, and then you can focus on taking long term measures to ensure that it doesn’t go up again. While many remedies for high blood pressure exist, your unique situation will dictate what works for you. In addition to medication or remedies you may find that you also need to work on how tense you are.

To sum up, it is always a good idea to regularly check your blood pressure and to seek medical advice if it is too high. the good news is that natural high blood pressure remedies and changes in your daily habits have been proven to effectively help you with your hypertension. the high blood pressure remedies we’ve been looking at may prove useful to you, so you may want to consider them.

Hypothetically speaking, a person with Alzheimer's has been put into a nursing home. they are vistited by their spouse and at that point asks if they can go home now.

Yes it does happen. they can have days when they are more lucid than others.. but sadly those dont last for too long. they also have moment to moment lucidity.

Globe and Mail UpdatePublished on Thursday, Aug. 19, 2010 4:24PM EDTLast updated on Friday, Aug. 20, 2010 9:29AM EDT

The failure of a promising Alzheimer’s drug in clinical trials highlights the gap between diagnosis – where real progress has recently been made – and treatment of the disease.

It was not just that the drug, made by Eli Lilly, did not work – maybe that could be explained by saying the patients’ illness was too far advanced when they received it. It was that the drug actually made them worse, the company said. And the larger the dose they took, the worse were patients’ symptoms of memory loss and inability to care for themselves. not only that, the drug also increased the risk of skin cancer.

So when Lilly announced Tuesday that it was ending its large clinical trials of that drug, semagacestat, researchers were dismayed.

“obviously, this is disappointing news, to say the least,” said Steven Paul, an Alzheimer’s researcher and a recently retired executive vice president at Lilly.

Beyond the setback for Lilly, the study raises questions about a leading hypothesis of the cause of Alzheimer’s and how to treat it. the idea, known as the amyloid hypothesis, says the disease occurs when a toxic protein, beta amyloid, accumulates in the brain. the idea is that if beta amyloid levels are reduced, the disease might be slowed, halted or even prevented if treatment starts early enough.

The Lilly drug, like most of the more than 100 Alzheimer’s drugs under development, blocks an enzyme, gamma secretase, needed to make beta amyloid. It was among the first shown to breach the blood-brain barrier and reduce levels of beta amyloid in the brain. And, company studies showed, it did reduce amyloid production.

“we did get enough in the brain to have an effect,” said Eric Siemers, medical director of Lilly’s Alzheimer’s disease team. “Unfortunately, the effect was not what we wanted.”

Now researchers are focused on what went wrong, and why.

Some, like Lon Schneider, an Alzheimer’s researcher at the University of Southern California, say the drug’s failure may mean the field is rushing off a cliff in its near single-minded focus on blocking the production of amyloid. the Lilly study’s failure, he said, “chips away at that approach to testing the amyloid hypothesis.

“we don’t know what the drug targets for Alzheimer’s disease are,” Dr. Schneider said. “we don’t know because we don’t know the causes of Alzheimer’s.”

At the very least, said Murali Doraiswamy, an Alzheimer’s researcher at Duke University, the Lilly result “clearly tells us that our current views may be too simplistic.”

Dr. Doraiswamy said he was not abandoning the amyloid hypothesis. but, he said, “this is a time of major soul-searching in the field.

“what worries me is that we don’t know if this was a toxicity unique to Lilly’s drug and this late-stage population or whether it also applies to similar anti-amyloid therapies given at earlier stages of the disease,” Dr. Doraiswamy said.

The bad news came on the heels of what researchers see as a resurgence of hope in this challenging field. with new co-operation in research they have made advances in diagnosing Alzheimer’s, a disease that used to be uncertain until autopsy.

PET scans of amyloid plaques in the brain and tests of cerebrospinal fluid can show amyloid accumulation long before people have symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and, as recently reported, appear to identify people at high risk of developing the disease. Researchers believe the best time to try to alter the course of the disease is before memory loss. By then, brain cells are dead or dying and are unlikely to be restored.

At this point, though, when there is no treatment, those tests are primarily a benefit for companies testing new therapies and researchers trying to understand the disease’s progress. but they don’t offer immediate hope for those currently afflicted with the disease. new York Times News Service

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There is a new test to predict Alzheimer’s before symptoms appear in patients.

Experts say this is monumental, because by the time there are symptoms, it may be too late.

“I’ll forget the names of movies, a friend’s name, sometimes and the day of the week,” said Alzheimer’s trial participant, Barbara Gautier.

Barbara Gautier has common symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease. A type of dementia that plagues many older Americans.

“About 14 mil people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease right now. In the next 20 years it will be 30 million…it is not increasing but we are having more awareness so we are able to diagnose it better,” said Geriatrician, Dr. Sai Avula.

Much better actually. Experts say a new spinal fluid test can be up to 90 percent accurate in identifying patients with Alzheimer’s and more importantly, will help identify 36 percent of those who may get Alzheimer’s in the future.

This is how it works.

“Putting a needle in the back and drawing some fluid from that and we can identify the two proteins the beta amyloid and tau proteins,” said Avula.

These two proteins are abnormal proteins, and when inside the brain, cause Alzheimer’s.

Up till this point, the proteins could not be identified until it was too late.“In the past we used to identify this in autopsy,” said Avula.

Dr. Avula also says, there may be more good news in Alzheimer’s research.

“Headed toward finding a vaccine against these proteins so in the next couple of years we’ll be hearing a little bit more about it.”

Dr. Avula says the best preventative steps against Alzheimer’s are the basics:

Eat right, exercise and keep your brain active with social interaction and puzzles like crosswords.