Alzheimers News & Features

Married people have a far lower chance of being diagnosed with this dreaded disorder than those who are divorced or separated, widowed, or never married, according to the study. And marriage is more protective than cohabitation, the study revealed.

Areas of the brain that keep you awake during the day are damaged in the early stages of the memory-robbing  disease, which is why people with Alzheimer's may nap excessively long before they start to struggle with forgetting things, the study authors said.

The analysis revealed a significant link between worsening depression symptoms and mental decline over two to seven years, and both of these trends seemed to be linked to a buildup of amyloid protein in brain tissue.

The blood test may be even more sensitive than the current gold standard -- a PET brain scan -- at detecting early amyloid accumulation in the brain, according to the authors.

Rates of Alzheimer's disease are higher in women than in men, and researchers now think they know why.

Even if you are unlucky enough to carry genes that predispose you to Alzheimer's disease, a healthy lifestyle can minimize that risk, new research shows.

The results revealed that participants between 18 and 65 who had family members with Alzheimer's scored lower than those who did not. That included even young adults in their 20s.

A new study has found that people 55 and older who took strong anticholinergic medications daily for three years or more had a 50% increased risk of dementia.

Researchers don't know whether the finding related to the drug nilvadipine can translate into any benefits for patients. But future studies should look into that possibility, they said.

If research confirms that high cholesterol plays a role in Alzheimer’s disease, officials may need to reduce our target levels for “bad” LDL cholesterol, the study author said.

A new study of more than 11,000 patients published in The Journal of the American Medical Association in April finds for the first time that technology can detect biological evidence of brain changes clearly linked to Alzheimer’s.

LATE causes memory loss and problems with thinking and reasoning, but on autopsy, doctors don’t find the Alzheimer’s-linked protein clumps known as plaques and tangles in the brain.

The results “make it clear that amyloid PET imaging can have a major impact on how we diagnose and care for patients with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of cognitive decline," said the study’s lead author.

The researchers said the pattern fits a theory that lower lifetime exposure to estrogen may contribute to dementia. Lab research, for example, suggests that estrogen aids resiliency and repair of brain cells.

The analysis found that dementia was the primary cause for nearly 262,000 deaths in 2017, nearly half from Alzheimer's disease. That's up from about 84,000 deaths attributed to dementia in 2000.

In the end, people who ate their fruits and vegetables were at no lower risk than those who favored sweets and steaks.

The study found that women taking hormone replacement therapy had a 9 percent to 17 percent higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. In women who began taking hormone therapy before age 60, this increased risk was tied to use of HRT for a decade or longer.

As Alzheimer’ progresses, amyloid beta proteins build up in parts of the brain. They clump together to form hardened plaques that disrupt the way the brain functions.

Combinations of drugs that lower blood pressure and/or statins to control high cholesterol did cut the chances of heart problems in people in a new study, but did not appear to have an effect on thinking and memory declines.

People who had a higher education did have greater thinking and memory skills when the study began. But, there was no association between higher education and a slower decline in thinking and memory.

The study found only that a group of dementia patients had different gut microbes from dementia-free adults, one expert noted.

"This type of weather can be hazardous for everyone, but even more so for individuals living with Alzheimer's disease, who may have difficulty noticing temperature and weather changes or knowing who to call for help," said Charles Fuschillo Jr., CEO and president of the Alzheimer's Foundation of America.

Although tight blood pressure control didn’t reduce the risk of full-blown dementia in the study, it did reduce the risk of mild cognitive impairment, an early form of the disease.

Researchers studied dead and living patients with diagnosed and suspected Alzheimer's and found bacteria associated with chronic gum disease in the brains of people with Alzheimer's, BBC News reported.

Researchers found that people with the most severe memory declines had the greatest leakage in their brain's blood vessels, regardless of whether the Alzheimer's-related proteins amyloid and tau were present.