Sea Crest Health Care Center

Amyloid beta plaque on the brain has long been associated with Alzheimer’s disease, and often considered the cause of mental decline.

Apparently, this is not true.

A British study used an immune response to almost completely remove the plaque from subjects’ brains, but this did not have any affect on the progression of their dementia.

This stymies the idea of an anti-amyloid approach to fighting Alzheimer’s disease. Even if amyloid beta plaque has something to do with the onset of the disease, it clearly doesn’t have an ongoing affect. Researchers must look for another mechanism triggered concurrently that could be affecting cognition.

~ Zev Driller

An old antihistamine drug may come back on the market one day – to treat Alzheimer’s disease. Dimebond, once sold in Russia to treat allergies, may have the happy side affect of reversing cognitive decline. Test subjects taking Dimebond actually improved their scores on cognition tests, compared to both the control group and their own baseline scores. Alistair Burns, M.D., of the University of Manchester in England, and Robin Jacoby, D.M., of the University of Oxford in England, believe it attacks several mechanisms of dementia that could make it affective in treating mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease.

Dimebond was only on the market temporarily, and in Russia. It was pulled when better, targeted antihistamines were introduced, making it superfluous. For that reason, it was never approved for use in the United States, and has not received much notice elsewhere.

by Bill Diblasio

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get the benefits of exercise without expending more energy then swallowing a pill?
AICAR, an old drug that has long been recognized for its ability to stimulate the creation of mitochondria, might be the pill for you.
Mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cell, producing the energy that powers our body. Recently, AICAR was administered to mice who were kept sedentary. After a few weeks, the AICAR mice raced regular sedentary mice, and ran 44% farther and 23% longer.
AICAR seems to mimic the effects of aerobic exercise, increasing stamina, but not building strength. It is being investigated as an aid in fighting diabetes and aging, and for uses in heart bypass surgery. Athletes need not apply.
Of course, the fact that AICAR works in mice doesn’t mean it’ll work in humans. Furthermore, it might have unpleasant side effects. And, as many researchers have hastened to point out, it doesn’t mimic all the myriad of benefits a person gets from real movement and exercise, which includes many chemical reactions  besides mitochondria.

The sandwich generation: the middle aged bunch, predominantly baby boomers these days, who have to care for both their children and their parents on a daily basis.

It doesn’t sound easy… and it isn’t. Juggling the needs of two sets of people is straining and exhausting, and spreads a person thin. It could also lead to lesser quality care for both the parents and the children, as the estimated 20 million Sandwichers in the United States don’t have the time or resources to juggle both as well as they would wish.

A Harris Interactive poll found that Sandwichers themselves feel deficient and a bit guilty about their responsibilities. Results found that 53% of those polled felt that they had to choose between caring for their own children and caring for their parents atleast once a week, while 20% felt this difficult choice occurred on a daily basis. 40% felt deficient, believing that their parents did a better job juggling the generational responsibility than they did.

Of course, Sandwichers have a different lifestyle than their parents did. Double income households are more common these days, and technology has ensured that a person can never really take a break or vacation. But some companies are trying to utilize that same technology to make it easier for Sandwichers to KIT with their parents from a distance. One example is Presto, a printer and mailbox service that permits Sandwichers with email access to send messages and reminders to aging parents without.

The market is only beginning to open, but Sandwich Generation Americans should keep an eye out for ways that technology can help them, instead of hindering them.