Spinal Fluid May Detect Alzheimer's

December 12, 2006 (AP) — Scientists appear to have found a fingerprint of Alzheimer’s disease lurking in patients’ spinal fluid, a step toward a long-awaited test for the memory-robbing disease that today can be diagnosed definitively only at autopsy.

Researchers at New York’s Weill Cornell Medical College discovered a pattern of 23 proteins floating in spinal fluid that, in very preliminary testing, seems to identify Alzheimer’s not perfectly, but with pretty good accuracy.

Far more research is needed before doctors could try spinal-tap tests in people worried they have Alzheimer’s, specialists caution.

But the scientists already are preparing for larger studies to see if this potential “biomarker” of Alzheimer’s, reported Tuesday in the journal Annals of Neurology, holds up.

“We’re looking to an era in which the kinds of uncertainties that many patients and their families face about the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease will no longer be a problem,” predicts Dr. Norman Relkin, a neurologist and the study’s senior researcher.

Currently, doctors diagnose Alzheimer’s mainly by symptoms. That makes early diagnosis particularly difficult, and even more advanced disease can be confused with other forms of dementia. Nor is there a good way to track the disease’s progression,important both for decisions about patient care as well as in testing the effectiveness of new drugs.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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New Gene Linked to Alzheimer's

It could contribute to late-onset disease, the most common form of the condition
By Alan Mozes, HealthDay Reporter

January 14, 2007 (HealthDay News) — Scientists have discovered a major new gene and linked it to the development of late-onset Alzheimer's disease.

The researchers found that faulty versions of the gene — known as SORL1 — are more common among those with the disease than among healthy people of a similar age. The finding is significant, the researchers said, because the study included more than 6,000 people from a wide range of racial and ethnic groups — white Europeans, blacks, Caribbean-Hispanics and Israeli-Arabs.

Abnormal SORL1 genes seem to set in motion a neurological chain of events that promotes the production of amyloid plaque in the brain — a development integral to the onset of Alzheimer’s.

People with these gene variants also appear to have fewer normal SORL1 genes overall, a dip that the researchers believe could also raise the risk for developing late-onset Alzheimer’s.

But, the researchers added that not all people with the faulty SORL1 gene will develop Alzheimer’s.

“There are multiple genes and maybe some environmental factors [involved], and it may be that some people carry a risk gene but don’t get the disease,” explained study co-author Dr. Richard Mayeux, co-director of the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain in New York City.

“So, until we map out all of (the) genes involved we’re not going to understand exactly how to calculate risk for this disease,” he said.

The findings are published in the Jan. 14 online issue of Nature Genetics.

While enthusiastic about the finding, Mayeux said it doesn’t represent a smoking gun. “Alzheimer’s disease is caused by a complex genetic puzzle, and the finding about SORL1 explains a section of the puzzle,” he said.“It is not the entire story.”

Mayeux and his colleagues stressed that much more work needs to be done.

Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.

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President's Budget Cuts Alzheimer Research

The Alzheimer's Association statement on President Bush's fiscal year 2008 budget proposal
Alzheimer’s Association, National

February 2, 2007 — President Bush’s budget for 2008 continues a dangerous trend of cutting funding for scientific research and essential services to individuals with debilitating and fatal diseases, such as Alzheimer's.

The federal government must adopt policies that head off looming crises in the delivery of health care services. Instead the president’s budget threatens to make the crises worse and bring them on sooner.

Alzheimer’s is already taking a terrible toll on millions of Americans and is poised to cause even more devastation in the future. The aging of today’s baby boomers makes it a national imperative that we find cures and alleviate the hardships inherent in today’s treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. If we don’t, Medicare and Medicaid will go bankrupt, and our nation will be unable to cope with the result.

The president’s budget priorities not only cut funding for current services, they may actually reverse the strides that have been made in the last decade toward finding solutions. In recent years, there have been incredible achievements in diagnosis, genetics, and treatment. Researchers are close to discovering disease-modifying drugs that will change the lives of people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The president’s budget has the potential to undo those scientific accomplishments and slow future progress.

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