Scientists at Oregon State University have captured something researchers have long struggled to see: the real-time chemical interactions that help drive Alzheimer’s disease. By watching how metal ions—especially copper—trigger harmful protein clumping in the brain, the team uncovered a clearer picture of how the disease develops at a molecular level.
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Doctors are only just getting to grips with LATE – a newly recognised form of cognitive decline behind up to one in five dementia cases
When a parent or grandparent begins forgetting names, misplacing objects or repeating the same stories, the diagnosis most people expect is Alzheimer’s disease. For decades, Alzheimer’s has dominated public understanding of dementia, becoming almost shorthand for memory loss itself.
But that assumption is increasingly being challenged. Neurologists now know that a significant number of people with Alzheimer’s-like symptoms actually have a different condition altogether – one that most families, and even many doctors, have only recently heard of.
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An 18-year nationwide cohort study of over 3.5 million adults in Switzerland published in Environment International by Nekane Sandoval-Diez et al. found an association between long-term residential exposure to the magnetic field EMF emitted by power lines and an increased risk of death from Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.
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Previous studies, including large cohort analyses comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated adults, suggest that routine immunizations such as inactivated influenza vaccines (IIVs) may reduce Alzheimer dementia (AD) risk. Whether AD risk differs after high-dose IIV (H-IIV) vs standard-dose IIV (S-IIV) remains unexamined. We hypothesized that AD risk would be lower among adults ≥65 years after H-IIV compared with S-IIV.
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Women develop Alzheimer’s disease at higher rates than men. Stanford Medicine neurologists explain what science knows about why and the many things it doesn’t yet know.
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The statistics are staggering – 342,000 people are listed as primary caregivers to the 11.7% of Virginians over age 65 living with Alzheimer’s disease. And the care that these loved ones provide within the commonwealth? It’s estimated to be worth $12.5 billion, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
“The need for dementia care in Central Virginia is immense,” said James “Trey” Bateman, M.D., MPH, director of the VCU Health Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive disorders clinic. “There’s an excellent opportunity to grow a program that excels at clinical care, research and education.”
Families need help coping with the diagnosis and care of those they love, and VCU Health strives to be at the forefront of research and treatment.
Internationally, more than 130 new dementia drugs are in the trial phase, with more on the horizon. Several already in the marketplace are proving that progression of the disease can be slowed if caught early and treated with the correct medication. Researchers are also learning how to tailor drugs to an individual patient’s brain chemistry.
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