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Alzheimer's disease is a progressive, irreversible brain disorder with no known cause or cure. It attacks and slowly steals the minds of its victims. Symptoms of Alzheimer's disease include memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, personality changes, disorientation, and loss of language skills. Always fatal, Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of irreversible dementia.

More than 4.5 million Americans are believed to have Alzheimer’s disease and by 2050, the number could increase to 13.2 million. Approximately 65,800 victims die and 350,000 new cases of Alzheimer's disease are diagnosed each year. America is not alone in dealing with this terrible affliction. In every nation where life expectancy has increased, so has the incidence of Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease is becoming tragically common. It is estimated that there are currently 26 million people worldwide with Alzheimer’s disease. This figure is projected to grow to more than 106 million people by 2050.

Consumption Of Fruits May Reduce Risk Of Alzheimer's Disease

Apples, bananas, and oranges are the most common fruits in both Western and Asian diets, and are important sources of vitamins, minerals, and fiber. A new study in the Journal of Food Science explores the additional health benefits of these fruits and reveals they also protect against neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s Disease.

Researchers at Cornell University investigated the effects of apple, banana, and orange extracts on neuron cells and found that the phenolic phytochemicals of the fruits prevented neurotoxicity on the cells.

Among the three fruits, apples contained the highest content of protective antioxidants, followed by bananas then oranges.

Although the mechanism of Alzheimer's is not clear, more support is gathering for the build-up of plaque from amyloid deposits. The deposits are associated with an increase in brain cell damage and death from oxidative stress.

It is against the oxidative stress that the anthocyanins and other cabbage polyphenols appear to offer protection.

The researchers used neuron-like PC12 cells and exposed them to fruit extracts at different concentrations (100, 300, 600, 2,000 micrograms per millilitre) prior to treating them with hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to induce oxidative stress.

Significantly more cells were viable after incubation with the fruit extracts, said the researchers, with apple offering the best protection. Despite this, banana and orange phenolics still protected 118 and 103 per cent more cells, compared to the control, at the highest concentration used.

Journal reference: H.J. Heo, S.J. Choi, S.-G. Choi, D.-H. Shin, J.M. Lee, C.Y. Lee. Effects of Banana, Orange, and Apple on Oxidative Stress-Induced Neurotoxicity in PC12 Cells. Journal of Food Science (OnlineEarly Articles). doi:10.1111/j.1750-3841.2007.00632.x

Source : ScienceDaily. Retrieved January 31, 2008, from
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080130130553.htm

Memory restoration breakthrough offers hope of Alzheimer's treatment

Doctors have made an accidental breakthrough that may unlock how memory works, during experimental brain surgery to control the appetite of an obese man.

The memory stimulation, which could potentially pave the way to treat disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, was an unanticipated side-effect of the treatment for obesity.

Electrodes were pushed deep into the man's brain, in this case to an area called the hypothalmus, thought to control appetite, and stimulated with an electric current.

Instead of suppressing the 30-stone patient's hunger, the experimental technique of deep brain stimulation (DBS) unlocked vivid memories of an experience 30 years earlier.

The surprising result has raised the possibility of a 'pacemaker' for the brain and a pilot study for patients with early Alzheimer's disease is now under way.

Lead researcher Professor Andres Lozano, of the Toronto Western Hospital, said: "This is a single case that was totally unexpected.

He said that once his team planted the electrodes, memory activity was most intense near a structure called the fornix, a grouping of fibres that carries signals within the limbic system, which is involved in memory and emotions and is situated next to the hypothalmus.

"To our surprise, as we turned on the device, he had a vivid experience of 30 years earlier,'' Professor Lozano said.

The 50-year-old man recalled in detail being in a park with friends and his then girlfriend when he was aged around 20. As the electric pulses were intensified, so the scene became more detailed.

Following surgery, the patient recovered for two months. When the electrodes were fitted a second time, more tests showed his ability to learn was dramatically improved when the current was switched on and his brain stimulated.

A year later he again performed well in memory tests when the electrodes were stimulated but less well when they were switched off.

"We knew immediately this was important. We are sufficiently intrigued to see if this could help people with memory disorders," said Professor Lozano. "We know very little about the circuitry of memory. This might give us some insight.''

The findings, reported today in the Annals of Neurology, the journal of the American Neurological Association, could offer hope to sufferers from the degenerative condition, which affects 450,000 people in the UK. However, experts warned that research is in the very early stages.

Professor Lozano, a professor of neurosurgery at the University of Toronto and a world authority on DPS said the approach could only address the symptom of forgetfulness. It would not modify the course of the disease but could still prove a useful tool in the fight against dementia.

"It gives us insight into which brain structures are involved in memory" Professor Lozano said. "It gives us a means of intervening in the way we have already done in Parkinson's and for mood disorders such as depression, and it may have therapeutic benefit in people with memory problems."

The technique is currently being used on six Alzheimer's patients as part of an initial pilot study. Three have so far had the £25,000-£30,000 device surgically implanted.

Rebecca Wood, Chief Executive of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, gave a cautious welcome to the findings, but said further work was clearly needed. She said: "It will be interesting to see whether this method offers any benefit to people with Alzheimer's.

"With the number of people with Alzheimer's forecast to double within a generation, we urgently need to find ways to tackle this awful disease, but research is hugely under-funded."

Source : Timesonline.co.uk, Published Date: 30 January 2008

New way to fight Alzheimer's disease

German scientists published a paper in the April 25, 2008 issue of Science saying that Alzheimer's disease may be treated by targeting discrete sub-compartments in the cell membrane (RAFTS).

RAFTS play an important role in complex physiological processes, such as the immune response and in many pathological situations.

In the case of Alzheimer's disease, ß-secretase in the cell membrane mediates production of ß-amyloid peptide, which is known to be linked to the disease.

The enzyme is involved in the conversion of cholesterol to ß-amyloid peptide. And high levels of cholesterol are correlated with increased production of the amyloid peptide, thus increasing odds of developing Alzheimer's.

The scientists who work for JADO Technologies GmbH described in the paper how the rate limiting enzyme in the production of Alzheimer's disease-associated with ß-amyloid peptide can be inhibited effectively using compounds anchored to the cell membrane RAFTS.

"Our data provide proof-of principle of a new approach for directing small molecule inhibitors to disease causing RAFT targets in cellular membranes," noted Professor Kai Simons, Max-Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics and co-founder of JADO.

"By directing inhibition to the sub-compartment where the enzyme is active, the approach has potential to be used in the design of more effective ?-secretase inhibitors for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease."

The new approach used a sterol anchor molecule to assist the inhibitor compounds to completely suppress the activity of ß-secretase, which is "internalized from the cell membrane into intracellular compartments (endosomes) where it cleaves its substrate, Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP)."

In an animal model of Alzheimer's disease, the same sterol-coupled inhibitor lowered production of ß-amyloid in the brain by 50 percent in 4 hours while the inhibitor alone was ineffective.

The sterol anchor helped target and increase the level of the inhibitor in the sterol-rich RAFTs where ß-secretase cleaves APP, according to the researchers.

In another study, Sebastien Hebert and colleagues of the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology, who are affiliated with Katholieke Universiteit – Leuven, found patients with the most common form of Alzheimer's disease had high levels of ß-secretase and lower levels of miR-29a and miR-29b-1.

The observation, according to the researchers, suggested a possible role of certain miRNA's in the increase of ß-secretase and in the formation of plagues in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease. If this proves to be true, the miRNA may serve as targets for developing anti-Alzheimer's drugs in the future.

The study titled Loss of microRNA cluster miR-29a/b-1 in sporadic Alzheimer’s disease correlates with increased BACE1/ß-secretase expression appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia found in the West. The disease is an incurable neurodegenerative disease that slowly and gradually destroys brain cells, a process that initially starts with the parts of the brain that control thought, memory and language.

The age-related disease affects an estimated 4.5 millions Americans. No one knows for sure what causes Alzheimer's disease, according to the U.S. government, although studies linked cholesterol to the increased risk of the disease.

Source : http://foodconsumer.org