Brain Changes Seen in Relatives of People With Alzheimer's

By Denise Mann
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, April 17 (HealthDay News) -- If Alzheimer's disease runs in your family, you may be more likely to have brain changes associated with the disorder even before symptoms such as memory and thinking problems occur, according to new research.

An estimated 5.2 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease, a number expected to increase dramatically as the baby boomer generation ages. The Alzheimer's Association predicts that the number of people aged 65 and older with the condition will reach 7.1 million by 2025.

To get a better handle on risk for Alzheimer's disease, researchers at Duke University looked at brain scans of more than 250 adults aged 55 to 89. Some had no signs of memory or thinking problems, while others did.

The researchers also analyzed genes and other markers in spinal fluid that are known to help predict Alzheimer's risk. A variation in the APOE gene was seen among those participants who were at greater risk for earlier onset of Alzheimer's.

Individuals who had a parent or sibling with Alzheimer's disease showed silent brain changes, the study found.

Specifically, close to 50 percent of healthy participants with a positive family history would have met the criteria for early Alzheimer's disease based on measurements of their cerebrospinal fluid, but just 20 percent of those without a family history would have fulfilled such criteria. The findings appear online April 17 in the journal PLoS ONE.

"In early-onset Alzheimer's disease, the genetics are much more clear-cut and we can test family members and know if they will develop Alzheimer's," said senior author Dr. P. Murali Doraiswamy, a professor of psychiatry and medicine at Duke.

It is not as clear-cut, however, when it comes to later-onset Alzheimer's, Doraiswamy said. "The genetics are much more complex, and although we know these individuals are at a slightly greater risk, we don't know when they start developing silent brain changes," he said. "[The new study is] documenting very clearly that asymptomatic family members have twice the rate of silent brain changes and that these changes happen in certain pathways known to be related to Alzheimer's disease."

The findings may help advance research that seeks to prevent Alzheimer's disease by using drugs, he said, and it's not a reason to panic and start to think the worst if you have a family history of the disease. "The findings don't suggest you should worry any more or any less," he said.

Although the study found an association between having a family history of Alzheimer's and showing brain changes related to the disease, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

"Having a family history does not mean you will get Alzheimer's disease," said Dr. Richard Isaacson, director of the Alzheimer's division at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. You may be at a higher risk for developing it, but it is not predestined, said Isaacson, who was not involved with the new study.

"Make brain-healthy choices now to help lower this risk," he suggested. "We know that if it is good for the heart it is good for the brain." Such choices include engaging in regular physical activity and eating a healthy low-fat diet.

"It's also important to keep your brain fit by doing something you enjoy -- whether crossword puzzles or learning a foreign language -- every day," Isaacson said.

"If you have a family history, get educated and informed about positive lifestyle choices and consider taking part in an Alzheimer's prevention trial," he said. "We can finally say 'Alzheimer's disease' and 'prevention' in the same sentence, and that is a great thing."

Copyright © 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCES: P. Murali Doraiswamy, M.D., professor of psychiatry and medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C.; Richard Isaacson, M.D., director, Alzheimer's division, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine; April 17, 2013, PLoS ONE

View the original article here

Zumba Launches Fight Against Hunger

There are things that are good for you (exercise), and things that are good for the world (charity). And there's only so many hours in a day so a girl's gotta multitask, right? Cue Zumba Fitness, the crazy party workout, and its just-launched Great Calorie Drive, that benefits Feeding America and the United Nations World Food Programme. How it goes down: for every class you take, Zumba will donate 750 calories worth of food to these charities. (This means that when you're burning off last night's French fries, you'll be giving someone a bowl of oatmeal).

Zumba is challenging the world to donate 2.6 billion calories, which will mean 3.5 million meals by the time the challenge ends in June. That's a huge amount of food, right? Consider that 870 million people worldwide are affected by hunger, so we need to all do our part -- and all you have to do is dance! Just download the app and check in when you attend a Zumba class. Before you go, snag a cute "Burn Baby Burn" racerback tank or cargo pants -- 30% of the sale of World Hunger Stopper apparel goes to Feeding America and the WFP. Sweat for charity and clothes? Sold.

RELATED LINKS:

Image Credit: Tom Rafalovich

View the original article here

calorie consumption

Hi, I need a little help or really some opinions with how many calories I should consume and still be on track to lose a little weight(ideally no more than 9lbs). I am 5'6.5 and 133.6lbs, 22 and female. I did my BMR which is around ~1439 and then multiplying that by 1.55 for moderate activity gives me ~2,230. Then I subtract 500 which allows me 1,730. Now I've always counted calories since forever I can remember and have always ate around 1500 to 1600 max when I'm in a routine (I don't count when I have cheat days every so often). 1,730 seems high to me anyone else think different? What I really mean is I am terrified to eat more and perhaps gain! By moderate activity, I will help specify, I do hot yoga 2-3 times a week, strength training 2x a week and cardio 1-2 times a week( I know I should be doing more cardio but I hate it) all of these activities for 1 hour. I burn anywhere from 200-500 calories according to my polar heart rate monitor. Any advice would be greatly appreciated :)

View the original article here

Fecal Transplant Studied for Kids With Bowel Disease

WEDNESDAY, April 17 (HealthDay News) -- Fecal transplantation -- an innovative enema treatment -- may help reduce or eliminate symptoms of ulcerative colitis in most children and young adults, according to a small study.

The process, formally called fecal microbial transplantation, involves placing stool from a healthy donor into a recipient's intestines in order to restore healthy bacteria.

The early clinical trial -- the first in the United States to study the process in children -- was conducted by a team at Helen DeVos Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids, Mich.

The study included 10 participants, aged 7 to 20 years, with mild to moderate ulcerative colitis. Enemas were used to give the patients lab-prepared stool samples from a healthy adult donor. Each patient received five such treatments within one week.

Seventy-eight percent of the patients had a reduction in ulcerative colitis symptoms within a week, and 67 percent still had reduced symptoms a month after fecal transplantation. Thirty-three percent of the patients no longer had any symptoms of ulcerative colitis after the process.

No serious side effects were noted, according to the study, which was published online and in the June print issue of the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology & Nutrition.

Ulcerative colitis is a type of inflammatory bowel disease that affects the lining of the large intestine, or colon, and rectum, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Symptoms can include abdominal pain, cramping, bloody diarrhea, pus in the stool, fever, rectal pain, weight loss, nausea, vomiting, joint pain, mouth sores, skin lesions and slow growth in children.

The disease often forces children to miss school and limit their social activities.

Fecal transplantation "has been proposed as a promising new treatment option for recurrent C. difficile infection and possibly for ulcerative colitis," lead investigator and pediatric gastroenterologist Dr. Sachin Kunde said in a hospital news release.

"We believe that the procedure may restore 'abnormal' bacteria to 'normal' in patients with ulcerative colitis," Kunde said. "Our short-term study looked at the safety and tolerability of [fecal microbial transplantation] for these patients."

Larger and longer studies are needed before the process could be recommended for clinical practice, the researchers said.

As many as 700,000 Americans have ulcerative colitis, and approximately 25 percent are diagnosed during childhood, according to the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation. Kunde said fecal transplantation could offer patients a natural, inexpensive treatment option.

-- Robert Preidt
Copyright © 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCE: Helen DeVos Children's Hospital, news release, April 2013

View the original article here

i can't stop overeating for various reasons?!

argh!

i've been overeating a lot lately, as in some days 3000/4000 when i'm at a healthy weight and don't exercise, so my metabolism is pretty slow.

basically it seems everyone around me is trying to feed me like crazy and i give in easily to their high calorie food. when i'm at home on my own all day i can eat healthily using a basic plan but if one thing throws off my normal routine BAM it ends up being a binge!

any ideas to help prevent this? :(

View the original article here

Clinical Trials Helped One Woman's Fight Against Cancer

And new tool for finding the right match may help others get novel treatments

By Barbara Bronson Gray

HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, April 18 (HealthDay News) -- Monica Barlow, a 35-year-old from Maryland, was training for a half-marathon when she noticed she couldn't shake a bad cough and ongoing fatigue. After a couple of rounds of antibiotics from an urgent care clinic didn't work, she sought another opinion.

A CT scan brought wrenching news: There was a tumor in her left lung.

"I never smoked, I eat well, exercise and had never had any medical problems prior to this," Barlow said. "To say it was a shock doesn't even begin to describe it."

Four years later, Barlow has been through a series of ups and downs. After learning the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and liver, she started chemotherapy, which only shrunk the tumors temporarily. She then joined two consecutive clinical trials, each offering to help control her cancer with novel drugs.

Barlow, who is director of public relations for the Baltimore Orioles baseball team, credits her participation in those clinical trials with prolonging her life.

Clinical trials test potentially promising treatments for a wide range of challenging diseases. But it can be difficult to find a good match for your particular situation and tough to know where to start looking. Even when you join a suitable trial, the outcomes are far from a sure thing.

Such has been the case for Barlow.

After she found out the lung cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and liver, she started an 18-week course of intravenous chemotherapy -- carboplatin, pemetrexed (Alimta) and bevacizumab (Avastin). Then there was some good news: The treatment had stabilized or shrunk all of the tumors.

A year later, her doctor found that the liver tumors were back. Because he discovered Barlow carried the ALK gene mutation, he suggested she join a clinical trial for a medication called crizotinib (Xalkori).

Initially, she didn't know if she was taking the real drug or a placebo. "That was a concern," she said. "It wasn't great to hear; it was stressful." Later in the trial, all patients were able to get the actual drug and placebos were no longer given to anyone, she said.

Barlow took Xalkori for two years, but last year the cancer returned yet again, requiring three ablations (localized methods to destroy a tumor without removing it) and two chemoembolizations (which deliver chemotherapy directly to the liver tumor while minimizing exposure to healthy tissues). Those procedures were not effective, and the next step was surgery to remove almost half of her liver.

Then, when tumor growth appeared in the new liver tissue that had grown back after the surgery, her doctors suggested she try a second clinical trial for a drug called LDK 378, which is being developed by Novartis.

View the original article here

Deep Brain Stimulation Studied as Last-Ditch Obesity Treatment

No major side effects seen in 3 patients over nearly 3 years

By Amy Norton

HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, June 13 (HealthDay News) -- For the first time, researchers have shown that implanting electrodes in the brain's "feeding center" can be safely done -- in a bid to develop a new treatment option for severely obese people who fail to shed pounds even after weight-loss surgery.

In a preliminary study with three patients, researchers found that they could safely use the therapy, known as deep brain stimulation (DBS). Over almost three years, none of the patients had any serious side effects, and two even lost some weight -- but it was temporary.

"The first thing we needed to do was to see if this is safe," said lead researcher Dr. Donald Whiting, vice chairman of neurosurgery at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh. "We're at the point now where it looks like it is."

The study, reported in the Journal of Neurosurgery and at a meeting this week of the International Neuromodulation Society in Berlin, Germany, was not meant to test effectiveness.

So the big remaining question is, can deep brain stimulation actually promote lasting weight loss?

"Nobody should get the idea that this has been shown to be effective," Whiting said. "This is not something you can go ask your doctor about."

Right now, deep brain stimulation is sometimes used for tough-to-treat cases of Parkinson's disease, a movement disorder that causes tremors, stiff muscles, and balance and coordination problems. A surgeon implants electrodes into specific movement-related areas of the brain, then attaches those electrodes to a neurostimulator placed under the skin near the collarbone.

The neurostimulator continually sends tiny electrical pulses to the brain, which in turn interferes with the abnormal activity that causes tremors and other symptoms.

What does that have to do with obesity? In theory, Whiting explained, deep brain stimulation might be able to "override" brain signaling involved in eating, metabolism or feelings of fullness. Research in animals has shown that electrical stimulation of a particular area of the brain -- the lateral hypothalamic area -- can spur weight loss even if calorie intake stays the same.

The new study marks the first time that deep brain stimulation has been tried in that brain region. And it's an important first step to show that not only could these three severely obese people get through the surgery, but they also seemed to have no serious effects from the brain stimulation, said Dr. Casey Halpern, a neurosurgeon at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved in the research.

"That shows us this is a therapy that should be studied further in a larger trial," said Halpern, who has done animal research exploring the idea of using deep brain stimulation for obesity.

"Obesity is a major problem," Halpern said, "and current therapies, even gastric bypass surgery, don't always work. There is a medical need for new therapies."

View the original article here