Poor sleep linked to Alzheimer’s disease

Need another topic for worry during those painful, sleepless nights? According to a recent study led by neurology professor, Yo-El Ju, MD, MD, the dreaded, degenerative disorder known as Alzheimer's disease could be one of them! In April, Ju unveils her team's completed publication at an American Academy of Neurology conference but the professor says some early findings reveal interesting parallels between sleeplessness and the onset of Alzheimer's.

The study consisted of 100 patients, half with a family history of Alzheimer's. Scientists monitored the participants' sleep patterns for two weeks, tracking a specific protein often seen in patients with pre-clinical Alzheimer's - amyloid plaques. The accumulation of amyloid plaques is closely associated with the disorder's development. The test participants in this initial group ranged from ages 45 to 80.

The study's preliminary findings revealed that two specific groups showed a proclivity for the onset of Alzheimer's. Those groups were people who woke up five times or more an hour and those that slept less than 85 percent during their overall time in bed. Sadly, those both sound like me.

What this means for me

For families like mine, with a medical history of chronic insomnia, this is serious medical news. Perhaps this study's findings would disturb me less if a cure for the disease existed or at the very least, a comprehensive management program. The fact that I'm on the study's cusp, at the young of 44, with a long history of sleep problems, troubles me as well.

Twenty-five years ago, my grandmother received her diagnosis. An avid gardener and piano player, just ten years later she passed away from complications associated with Alzheimer's disease. Despite having a full, loving life, losing her gradually to this cruel disease took a toll on my family. I can't help but wonder if better sleep health would have made a difference.

Today, I'm currently under a doctor's care for my insomnia. I exercise regularly; I usually walk a mile a day. I have changed my diet and even my bed in search of a good night's sleep. Before seeking help from the family doctor I tried natural supplements, sleep machines, even prayer. The prayer helped but I'm still praying for better sleep! After a decade of searching for a non-prescription cure, I finally acquiesced to my physician's suggestion and began taking a sleep medication.

Reading this study makes me feel less guilty about taking my medicine and proves how serious getting quality sleep is. Walking around zombified with bleary eyes and a sticky brain isn't the only reason to sleep at night. My life could depend on it.

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Researchers Spot New Gene Mutation Linked to Breast Cancer

A new drug to treat advanced skin cancer, or metastatic melanoma, has been shown to nearly double average survival time in a study of more than 130 patients, researchers said Wednesday.

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Lives Forever Linked Through Kidney Transplant Chain 124

In February 2011, the desk clerk at Mr. Ruzzamenti’s yoga studio told him she had recently donated a kidney to an ailing friend she had bumped into at Target. Mr. Ruzzamenti, 44, had never even donated blood, but the story so captivated him that two days later he called Riverside Community Hospital to ask how he might do the same thing.

Halfway across the country, in Joliet, Ill., Donald C. Terry Jr. needed a kidney in the worst way. Since receiving a diagnosis of diabetes-related renal disease in his mid-40s, he had endured the burning and bloating and dismal tedium of dialysis for nearly a year. With nobody in his family willing or able to give him a kidney, his doctors warned that it might take five years to crawl up the waiting list for an organ from a deceased donor.

“It was like being sentenced to prison,” Mr. Terry recalled, “like I had done something wrong in my life and this was the outcome.”

As a dawn chill broke over Chicago on Dec. 20, Mr. Terry received a plump pink kidney in a transplant at Loyola University Medical Center. He did not get it from Mr. Ruzzamenti, at least not directly, but the two men will forever share a connection: they were the first and last patients in the longest chain of kidney transplants ever constructed, linking 30 people who were willing to give up an organ with 30 who might have died without one.

What made the domino chain of 60 operations possible was the willingness of a Good Samaritan, Mr. Ruzzamenti, to give the initial kidney, expecting nothing in return. Its momentum was then fueled by a mix of selflessness and self-interest among donors who gave a kidney to a stranger after learning they could not donate to a loved one because of incompatible blood types or antibodies. Their loved ones, in turn, were offered compatible kidneys as part of the exchange.

Chain 124, as it was labeled by the nonprofit National Kidney Registry, required lockstep coordination over four months among 17 hospitals in 11 states. It was born of innovations in computer matching, surgical technique and organ shipping, as well as the determination of a Long Island businessman named Garet Hil, who was inspired by his own daughter’s illness to supercharge the notion of “paying it forward.”

Dr. Robert A. Montgomery, a pioneering transplant surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, which was not involved in the chain, called it a “momentous feat” that demonstrated the potential for kidney exchanges to transform the field. “We are realizing the dream of extending the miracle of transplantation to thousands of additional patients each year,” he said.

The chain began with an algorithm and an altruist. Over the months it fractured time and again, suspending the fates of those down the line until Mr. Hil could repair the breach. Eventually, he succeeded in finding needle-in-a-haystack matches for patients whose antibodies would have caused them to reject organs from most donors.

Until now, few of the donors and recipients have known one another’s names. But 59 of the 60 participants consented to be identified by The New York Times and to tell the stories, each with distinct shadings, that ultimately connected them.

Despite an intensely bitter breakup, a Michigan man agreed to donate a kidney for his former girlfriend for the sake of their 2-year-old daughter. A woman from Toronto donated for her fifth cousin from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, after meeting him by chance in Italy and then staying in touch mostly by text messages.

Children donated for parents, husbands for wives, sisters for brothers. A 26-year-old student from Texas gave a kidney for a 44-year-old uncle in California whom he rarely saw. In San Francisco, a 62-year-old survivor of Stage 4 Hodgkin’s lymphoma donated for her son-in-law.

On Aug. 15, Mr. Ruzzamenti’s kidney flew east on a Continental red-eye from Los Angeles to Newark and was rushed to Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, N.J. There it was stitched into the abdomen of a 66-year-old man.

The man’s niece, a 34-year-old nurse, had wanted to give him her kidney, but her Type A blood clashed with his Type O. So in exchange for Mr. Ruzzamenti’s gift, she agreed to have her kidney shipped to the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison for Brooke R. Kitzman’s transplant. It was Ms. Kitzman’s former boyfriend, David Madosh, who agreed to donate a kidney on her behalf despite their acrimonious split.

Mr. Madosh’s kidney flew to Pittsburgh for Janna Daniels, a clerical supervisor, who got her transplant at Allegheny General Hospital. And her husband, Shaun, a mechanic, sent his kidney to Mustafa Parks, a young father of two at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego.

On and on the chain extended, with kidneys flying from coast to coast, iced down in cardboard boxes equipped with GPS devices and stowed on commercial aircraft.

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Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis Linked to Fertility Woes, Miscarriage

THURSDAY, Feb. 16 (HealthDay News) -- Women with rheumatoid arthritis or systemic lupus erythematosus often have fewer children than they'd hoped for, according to a new study.

These autoimmune diseases, which typically develop during women's reproductive years, cause fertility problems and miscarriage, researchers said.

Lupus causes the body's immune system to attack healthy tissues and organs. Rheumatoid arthritis leads to painful joint inflammation.

For the study, researchers asked 578 women with rheumatoid arthritis and 114 women with lupus about their reproductive health, and divided them into three groups according to how their condition affected their desire and ability to have children.

Group A included women who had fewer children than planned. Group B was comprised of women who had number of children they had planned for, and women in Group C were no longer interested in having children due to their concerns about how their illness would affect their children.

More than 60 percent of the women surveyed fell into Group C and no longer wanted to have children, according to the study appearing Feb. 16 in Arthritis Care & Research.

"Our study highlights important reproductive health concerns for women with [rheumatoid arthritis and lupus]," study author Dr. Megan Clowse said in a journal news release.

Of the remaining women, 55 percent with rheumatoid arthritis and 64 percent of those of those with lupus had fewer children than originally planned.

Among these women, those with rheumatoid arthritis had an infertility rate of 42 percent, or 1.5 times higher than those in group B. Both groups had similar rates of miscarriage.

Women with lupus who had fewer children than planned had the same number of pregnancies as those in Group B, but their miscarriage rate was three times higher.

The authors concluded that informing women with lupus and rheumatoid arthritis about their medical options during pregnancy and how to control their disease will help them achieve their family planning goals.

"Further study of the underlying causes of infertility and pregnancy loss in women with [rheumatoid arthritis and lupus] is needed to help fulfill their desire for children," Clowse said.

More information

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provides more information on women and autoimmune diseases.

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4 New Genes Linked to Type 2 Diabetes

THURSDAY, Feb. 9 (HealthDay News) -- Four new genes associated with type 2 diabetes have been identified by researchers, who also pinpointed six independent diabetes-associated gene variants at previously known locations on chromosomes.

These findings, from an analysis of 50,000 genetic variants across 2,000 genes linked to heart and metabolic function, appear in the Feb. 9 issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics.

The results offer valuable insight into the genetic risk for type 2 diabetes in multiple ethnic groups and could help lead to new treatments, according to a journal news release.

A number of environmental and genetic factors are associated with type 2 diabetes.

"Together, known [type 2 diabetes] genetic variants explain only about 10 percent of the genetic variance, indicating that additional genetic factors are likely to contribute to disease risk," senior study co-author Dr. Brendan Keating, of The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said in the news release.

"Further, previous studies have been based almost exclusively on individuals of European ancestry, and genetic contributors to [type 2 diabetes] are less well understood in non-European populations," he added. "An important first step towards understanding genetic risk across populations is to establish whether known [diabetes-associated] genes span ethnicities or are population-specific."

Keating and an international team of colleagues analyzed 39 multiethnic studies on type 2 diabetes that included more than 17,000 people with diabetes and 70,000 people without the disease.

"As a result of our large-scale genetic analysis, we uncovered previously unknown European and multiethnic genetic variants and confirmed that, together, known genetic risk factors influence [type 2 diabetes] risk in multiethnic populations, including African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians," senior co-author Richa Saxena, of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, said in the release.

Saxena said that identifying new genes associated with type 2 diabetes in diverse ethnic groups could eventually guide strategies for developing treatments.

More information

For more on type 2 diabetes, go to Medline.

View the original article here

4 New Genes Linked to Type 2 Diabetes

THURSDAY, Feb. 9 (HealthDay News) -- Four new genes associated with type 2 diabetes have been identified by researchers, who also pinpointed six independent diabetes-associated gene variants at previously known locations on chromosomes.

These findings, from an analysis of 50,000 genetic variants across 2,000 genes linked to heart and metabolic function, appear in the Feb. 9 issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics.

The results offer valuable insight into the genetic risk for type 2 diabetes in multiple ethnic groups and could help lead to new treatments, according to a journal news release.

A number of environmental and genetic factors are associated with type 2 diabetes.

"Together, known [type 2 diabetes] genetic variants explain only about 10 percent of the genetic variance, indicating that additional genetic factors are likely to contribute to disease risk," senior study co-author Dr. Brendan Keating, of The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said in the news release.

"Further, previous studies have been based almost exclusively on individuals of European ancestry, and genetic contributors to [type 2 diabetes] are less well understood in non-European populations," he added. "An important first step towards understanding genetic risk across populations is to establish whether known [diabetes-associated] genes span ethnicities or are population-specific."

Keating and an international team of colleagues analyzed 39 multiethnic studies on type 2 diabetes that included more than 17,000 people with diabetes and 70,000 people without the disease.

"As a result of our large-scale genetic analysis, we uncovered previously unknown European and multiethnic genetic variants and confirmed that, together, known genetic risk factors influence [type 2 diabetes] risk in multiethnic populations, including African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians," senior co-author Richa Saxena, of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, said in the release.

Saxena said that identifying new genes associated with type 2 diabetes in diverse ethnic groups could eventually guide strategies for developing treatments.

More information

For more on type 2 diabetes, go to Medline.

View the original article here