Scientists found pensioners aged 75 or over who like a daily pint or glass of wine are helping to stave off senility.

Those who drink alcohol are 30 per cent less likely to develop dementia and 40 per cent less likely to suffer Alzheimer’s than those who were teetotal, according to the research.

A study of more than 3,200 German people aged 75 or over attending GPs, who were free of dementia, were studied and checked 18 months and three years later.

Associations between alcohol consumption, type of alcohol – wine, beer, mixed alcohol beverages – and incident dementia were examined.

“People should be aware that we are talking about mild/moderate consumption of alcohol,” said Professor Siegfried Weyerer from the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany.

Read More: Telegraph

Photo: Ragesoss (CC)

Vitamin B tablets could slow and even halt the devastating march of Alzheimer’s Disease in the elderly, according to a breakthrough British study reported in the Telegraph:

The research showed that large doses of the supplement could halve the rate of brain shrinkage – a physical symptom associated memory loss and dementia in the elderly.

The effects were so dramatic that the scientists behind the work believe it could revolutionise the treatment of the disease.

Brain shrinkage or atrophy is a natural part of ageing but it is known to be accelerated in people with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) – a kind of memory loss and forgetfulness – and Alzheimer’s. Scientists at the University of Oxford conducted a trial on 168 people and found that taking high doses of three vitamin B supplements every day reduced brain shrinkage associated with dementia by up to 53 per cent.

They said the results were so strong that it should open up a debate as to whether the tablets should be prescribed to everyone with MCI – half of whom develop Alzheimer’s disease. MCI affects 16 per cent of people over 70 – 1.5 million people in the UK.

Professor David Smith, a pharmacologist who co-authored the study, said the results were “immensely promising”. “It is a very simple solution: you give someone some vitamins and you protect the brain,” he said.

“This is the first trial that has shown a glimmer of hope and success. It is the first one of its kind that has worked so clearly. I think it will change the whole direction of Alzheimer’s research…

[continues in the Telegraph]

Rapamycin is a bacterial byproduct discovered in the soil of Easter Island. It extends the lives of animals, and now two independent studies show that it can reverse the symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Is this the drug we’ve been waiting for?

A study published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry confirmed that mice with Altzheimers showed marked improvement in memory and cognition after being fed a rapamycin-enhanced diet. This study was released simultaneously with another, in PLoS One, which confirmed the results of the first in a different group of mice.

How does this wonder drug work? Physiologist Veronica Galvan, an author on the PLoS study, explained:

Rapamycin treatment lowered levels of amyloid-beta-42, a major toxic species of molecules in Alzheimer’s disease. These molecules, which stick to each other, are suspected to play a key role in the early memory failure of Alzheimer’s … The fact that we are seeing identical results in two vastly different mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease provides robust evidence that rapamycin treatment is effective and is acting by changing a basic pathogenic process of Alzheimer’s that is common to both mouse models. This suggests that it may be an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s in humans, who also have very diverse genetic makeup and life histories.

Read More on io9.com

Researchers have uncovered a bittersweet relationship between two major illnesses: cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

People who have had cancer are less likely to get Alzheimer’s disease, just as having Alzheimer’s disease reduces the risk for cancer, their study found.

“Alzheimer’s was associated with a rather dramatic reduction in cancer risk,” said Dr. Richard Lipton, an attending neurologist at Montefiore Medical Center and professor of neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. “From my perspective, the strengths of the findings are very striking and somewhat unexpected.”

There was no link between Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia, however, suggesting that the association has to do with neurodegenerative factors. Vascular dementia is attributed to damage to the brain’s blood supply…

[continues in Business Week]

Malaria. Tuberculosis. Alzheimer’s disease. AIDS. Pandemic flu. Genital herpes. Urinary tract infections. Grass allergies. Traveler’s diarrhea. You name it, the pharmaceutical industry is working on a vaccine to prevent it.

Many could be on the market in five years or less.

Contrast that with five years ago, when so many companies had abandoned the vaccine business that half the U.S. supply of flu shots was lost because of factory contamination at one of the two manufacturers left.

Vaccines are no longer a sleepy, low-profit niche in a booming drug industry. Today, they’re starting to give ailing pharmaceutical makers a shot in the arm.

The lure of big profits, advances in technology and growing government support has been drawing in new companies, from nascent biotechs to Johnson & Johnson. That means recent remarkable strides in overcoming dreaded diseases and annoying afflictions likely will continue…

[more at AP]