| Alzheimer's
Disease affects 3% people above 60 years.
By the 2020 over 75 % of all people
with dementia in the world will be living in the
developing countries, mainly India , China, and Latin
America. It is estimated that by 1990 there were 15
million people with dementia in the world. In just 30
years by 2020, the number would double to 30 million. The
largest increase is going to occur in the rapidly
developing regions of the world like India, China and
Latin America. The prevalence of dementia doubles with
each 5 years increase in age, from 3 % among all those
aged 60, to 4-5 % among all aged 65 and 30-40 % among
those over the age of 80 years.In the developing
countries less attention has been given to dementia as it
has been relatively less common condition with few
persons surviving into the age group most at risk. The
number of elderly in the developing world is growing at a
faster rate than other segments of population. This in
turn is going to put heavy burden on the already strained
health resources of these countries. There is urgent need
to carry out dementia prevalence studies in developing
countries to help the planners to understand the real
gravity of the situation.
Link
between Alzheimer's disease and Mercury
There appears
to be no link between Alzheimer's disease and mercury used
in dental fillings, say University of Kentucky
researchers. Such a link has been speculated on in the
past, as scientists took closer looks at the effects of
heavy metals on the brain. But the University of Kentucky
study said there appears to be no harm from mercury
fillings. "Although very small amounts of mercury
are released from dental amalgam - generally when rubbed
or abraded due to brushing or eating - it is not taken up
by the brain, said Dr. Stanley Saxe, one of the authors
of the study published in Journal of the American Dental
Association.
Brain blood
flow, Alzheimer linked
Rogue bits of a natural
protein may promote Alzheimer's disease by disrupting the
flow of blood in tiny vessels of the brain, a study
suggests. The study provides more evidence vitamin E and
other antioxidants may fight the disease, and suggests
finding treatments to restore normal blood flow may pay
off. Scientists do not know what causes most cases of
Alzheimer's. Many point to overproduction of natural
protein fragments that form clumps in the brain. Studies
show the fragments can kill brain cells. The new work
suggests amyloid-beta, or related fragments, can promote
Alzheimer's in a second way: by boosting production of
harmful substances called oxygen radicals, which in turn
keep tiny blood vessels from delivering the right amounts
of blood to brain cells.
Possible Alzheimers
Trigger Found
Scientists say they have found an
enzyme that triggers
Alzheimer's disease, a finding that could lead to more
targeted treatments for the 4 million Americans suffering
from the disease.
Researchers led by Dr. Dennis Selkoe, a neurologist at
Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and scientists at
the University of Tennessee in Memphis, say a brain
substance called presenilin (PS-1) is the enzyme that
controls amyloid beta proteins, a toxic plaque found in
the
brains of Alzheimer's patients.
Understanding how this toxic plaque forms could help
scientists create intervening drugs that stop the plaque
from building up in the brain.
PS-1 may also be involved in regulating the immune
system,
researchers point out. However, the finding "could
lead to
significant advances in therapeutics research by showing
us
how to intervene before plaques form," researchers
conclude
in the April 8 issue of Nature.
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