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Alzheimer's & Dementia

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Using vitamin E and C supplements together may reduce risk of Alzheimer's

A study involving 4,740 elderly (65 years or older) found the greatest reduction in both prevalence and incidence of Alzheimer's in those who used individual vitamin E and C supplements in combination, with or without an additional multivitamin.

High-dose vitamin regime may help slow Alzheimer's

A preliminary study suggests that a regime of high doses of folic acid, B12 and B6 reduces levels of homocysteine in people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s.

Exercise beneficial for dementia

A new review from The Cochrane Library, based on six trials involving 289 people, has concluded that exercise can improve cognition and the ability of older people with dementia to carry out daily activities, such as walking short distances or getting up from a chair.

Three-minute test detects Lewy Body dementia
  • An easy new rating scale will help those with Lewy Body dementia be diagnosed much more quickly.

After Alzheimer's disease, the next most common type of dementia is Lewy Body disease. Far less widely known, this form of dementia is often diagnosed quite late.

Dementia trend shows later onset with fewer years of the disease
  • A large study shows that the falling rates of dementia reflect later onset coupled with shorter time spent with the dementia.

A large study using data from the famous Framingham Heart Study has compared changes in dementia onset over the last three decades. The study found that over time the age of onset has increased while the length of time spent with dementia has decreased.

Researchers classify Alzheimer's patients in 6 subgroups
  • More evidence that Alzheimer's disease is not a single disease with a single cause and single pathway comes from a large study classifying patients into 6 groups, only two of which showed strong genetic association.
  • Another study using post-mortem brain tissue found that different genes were associated with different types of brain damage.

A study involving 4,050 people with late-onset Alzheimer's disease (mean age 80) has classified them into six groups based on their cognitive functioning at the time of diagnosis. A genetic study found two of the groups showed strong genetic associations.

More studies linking poor sleep to Alzheimer's risk
  • Adults whose sleep quality declined in their 40s and 50s had more amyloid-beta in their brains later in life, while those reporting poorer sleep in their 50s and 60s had more tau tangles.
  • Greater tau protein was associated with less synchronized brainwaves during sleep.
  • Both amyloid-beta and tau levels increase dramatically after a single night of sleep deprivation, suggesting good sleep helps remove these proteins.
  • A large study found that older adults who consistently slept more than nine hours every night had twice the risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease within the next 10 years.
  • A large Japanese study found that those with sleep durations of less than 5 hours or more than 10 hours were more likely to develop dementia. However, those with short sleep could mitigate the effect with high physical activity.
  • A largish 12-year study found that poorer REM sleep was associated with an increased dementia risk.
  • Sleep apnea has been linked to higher levels of tau in the entorhinal cortex, poorer attention and memory, and slower processing speed.
  • Those with the APOE4 gene may be particularly vulnerable to the ill effects of sleep apnea.

Disrupted sleep in one's 50s, 60s raises Alzheimer's risk

Slower walking speeds linked to dementia risk
  • A large, long-running study has found older adults with a slower walking speed were more likely to develop dementia in the next decade.
  • Another long-running study has found that slowing over 14 years was linked to brain atrophy in the hippocampus, and cognitive impairment.

Data from the English Longitudinal Study of Aging, in which nearly 4,000 older adults (60+) had their walking speed assessed on two occasions in 2002-2003 and in 2004-2005, those with a slower walking speed were more likely to develop dementia in the next 10 years.

Brain damage shown early when two parents with Alzheimer's

A small study involving 52 people aged 32-72 has found that those whose parents both had Alzheimer's disease showed more severe abnormalities in brain volume and metabolism and 5-10% more amyloid plaques in certain brain regions, compared to those with either a father or mother, or neither parent

Rate of dementia has decreased for African-Americans

A long-running study comparing African-Americans and Nigerians has found the incidence of dementia has fallen significantly over two decades among the African-Americans, but remained the same for the Nigerians (for whom it was lower anyway).

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