Sleeplessness Tied to Early Alzheimer's, Study Says

TUESDAY, Feb. 14 (HealthDay News) -- Poor-quality sleep may have worse effects than simple fatigue: A preliminary new study suggests it's linked to the buildup of brain plaques seen in people with Alzheimer's disease.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis monitored the sleep patterns of 100 mentally healthy people between the ages of 45 and 80 -- half of whom had a family history of Alzheimer's disease -- and found that those who awakened more than five times an hour were more likely to have amyloid plaque accumulations than those with fewer sleep disturbances.

Amyloid protein plaques are a trait of Alzheimer's, a condition affecting at least 5.4 million Americans that robs patients of memory and reasoning skills. These characteristics, detectable with brain scans and spinal fluid tests, can appear years before Alzheimer's symptoms begin.

"We were initially looking at duration of sleep, but it seems the quality of sleep is more important to this association," said study author Dr. Yo-El Ju, an assistant professor of neurology. "We don't know if early Alzheimer's is causing poor sleep, or vice-versa.

"It's possible that there's some change in brain activity going on during sleep that allows soluble amyloid to decrease overnight," Ju added, "but we need to study this much more closely."

Preliminary results from the study were released Feb. 14 in advance of their presentation at the American Academy of Neurology's annual meeting in April in New Orleans.

For two weeks, study participants wore a device on their wrists that determined whether they were awake or asleep depending on body movements. They also filled out sleep diaries and questionnaires, and underwent brain imaging and spinal fluid tests.

Testing showed that 25 percent had preclinical indicators for Alzheimer's disease, and researchers found that those who slept "less efficiently" were more likely to have the indicators for early-stage Alzheimer's than those with uninterrupted sleep. While the average time spent in bed was about eight hours, the average sleep time was 6.5 hours because of brief awakenings in the night. Those who spent less than 85 percent of their time in bed actually sleeping were more likely to have Alzheimer's traits, or biomarkers.

Because the study, which should be completed in several months, is still under way, Ju said it isn't yet known whether participants with a family history of Alzheimer's are more likely to suffer from disturbed sleep or show biological indicators of the condition.

"Results are very promising, but it's very important to follow the people who don't have any type of early Alzheimer's because that's the only way we'll know what comes first," disturbed sleep or Alzheimer's biomarkers, she said. Because while the study uncovered an association between poor sleep and plaque formation, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

Dr. Daniel Potts, a partner at Alabama Neurology and Sleep Medicine in Tuscaloosa, said he suspects that chronic poor-quality sleep will eventually be proven to contribute to amyloid plaque formation.

If that cause-effect relationship is established, scientists may be able to "tailor an intervention" to improve sleep for those affected, Potts said.

"That's my hunch. It makes sense to me," said Potts, also a spokesperson for the American Academy of Neurology. "The best possible thing we could get out of this would be that we could do something about it. But there's not enough data to step out and say [for certain] at this point."

Research presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

More information

The Alzheimer's Association has more information about amyloid protein plaques.

View the original article here

Aspirin could beat cancer spread: Australian study

Aspirin and other household drugs may inhibit the spread of cancer because they help shut down the chemical "highways" which feed tumours, Australian researchers said Tuesday.

Scientists at Melbourne's Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre said they have made a biological breakthrough helping explain how lymphatic vessels -- key to the transmission of tumours throughout the body -- respond to cancer.

"We've shown that molecules like the aspirin... could effectively work by reducing the dilation of these major vessels and thereby reducing the capacity of tumours to spread to distant sites," researcher Steven Stacker said.

Doctors have long suspected that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin may help inhibit the spread of cancer but they have been unable to pinpoint exactly how this is done.

By studying cells in lymphatic vessels, the researchers found that a particular gene changed its expression in cancers which spread, but not when the cancer did not spread.

The results published in Cancer Cell journal reveal that the gene is a link between a tumour's growth and the cellular pathway which can cause inflammation and dilation of vessels throughout the body.

Once these lymphatic vessels widen, the capacity for them to act as "supply lines" to tumours and become more effective conduits for the cancer to spread is increased.

But aspirin acts to shut down the dilation of the vessels.

"So it seems like we have found a pivotal junction point in a biochemical sense between all these different contributors," Stacker said.

The discovery could lead to new and improved drugs which could help contain many solid tumours, including breast and prostate cancer, as well as potentially provide an "early warning system" before a tumour begins to spread.

Last year, a study published in medical journal The Lancet found that rates of cancer of the colon, prostate, lung, brain and throat were all reduced by daily aspirin use.

Many doctors recommend regular use of aspirin to lower the risk of heart attack, clot-related strokes and other blood flow problems. A downside of extended daily use is the risk of stomach problems.

mfc/mp/jms

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Radiation After Lung Cancer Surgery Doesn't Help All: Study

MONDAY, Feb. 13 (HealthDay News) -- For older people with a certain type and stage of lung cancer, administering radiation treatment after surgery may not extend survival, according to a new study.

Radiation is not without risks, and the new study "questions the benefit of this treatment," said study leader Dr. Juan Wisnivesky, an associate professor of medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.

He and his team looked at survival outcomes in more than 1,300 lung cancer patients with locally advanced disease, 710 of whom got the postoperative radiation therapy. It is routinely given in an attempt to prevent recurrence.

No substantial survival benefits were found at one year or three years.

"We found in this group of elderly patients, many of whom received the treatment, the use of the treatment did not appear to help them live longer," he said.

Patients in the study, all 65 or older, had stage 3 non-small cell lung cancer and involvement of N2 lymph nodes. Their cancer had spread but not widely. All had been diagnosed from 1992 through 2005 and were included in the U.S. Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database, which is linked to Medicare.

The study, published online Feb. 13 in the journal Cancer, was funded by the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

About 226,000 new cases of lung cancer will be diagnosed in the United States this year, 90 percent of which will be non-small cell, according to the American Cancer Society. Within non-small cell cancers, there are three main subtypes.

Previous studies looking into the survival benefits of post-op radiation for this group of patients have produced mixed results, Wisnivesky said.

However, in his study, he found no substantial differences between those who had the treatment and those who didn't. And, radiation therapy carries risks. Besides the inconvenience of the additional treatments, the therapy can cause irritation of the lungs and inflammation of the esophagus, he said.

"Patients need to be well informed," he said. "They have to have a good discussion with their doctor about what are the potential benefits," he said. They also need to discuss possible side effects.

Another expert, Dr. Dan Raz, an assistant professor of surgery at City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif., emphasized that the study is not talking about all stage 3 lung cancer patients, but only a specific group, those with stage 3 non-small cell and involvement of the N2 lymph nodes.

"It's a small subset of patients" of all lung cancer patients, he said, adding that it's a challenging group.

Some previous small studies have also suggested that post-op radiation may be unnecessary in these patients, and the new findings add to that argument, he said.

"In the end, survival and quality of life are the most important things for patients," Raz said. But recurrence, a key factor, was not addressed in the study, he said.

The new finding "wouldn't change the way I treat patients, but I think it raises a very important point."

What's needed is a trial comparing use of post-operative radiation and its non-use in this group of patients, Raz said. According to Wisnivesky, such a study is under way in France, but will take several years to finish.

More information

For more on radiation therapy, go to the American Cancer Society.

View the original article here

New study casts doubt on lung cancer treatment

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A controversial radiation treatment for patients who've had lung cancer surgery may not help elderly people live longer, U.S. researchers have found.

Postoperative radiotherapy, or PORT, is thought to cut the chances that a tumor will return. But it can damage the heart and lungs, which might cancel out any potential benefits -- particularly in seniors.

"Thus, these patients may be exposed to the side effects and complications of PORT without a clear benefit," lead researcher Dr. Juan Wisnivesky, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, told Reuters Health by email.

The findings fuel an ongoing debate over how much treatment older cancer patients should get. Often those treatments have been tested in younger people and it's unclear whether other age groups will reap the same benefits.

Side effects may take a higher toll on older people's health, for instance, and they may not live long enough to see the positive effects of their therapy.

"The marginal benefit of the additional treatment gets smaller and smaller as patients get older," said Dr. David J. Sher, a radiation expert at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, who was not involved in the new work.

"Their overall fitness generally doesn't warrant postoperative radiotherapy," he told Reuters Health. "It's a fine balance."

The new study, published in the journal Cancer, analyzed data on more than 1,300 Medicare patients who'd had surgery for early-stage lung cancer.

Such patients usually don't get radiation therapy, but in this group the cancer had spread to lymph nodes in the chest. There is no agreement on what to do in that case, and earlier studies have come to mixed conclusions.

It turned out that about half of the patients, most of whom were over 70, had been treated with radiation.

It's hard to compare those who got radiation and those who didn't directly, because different factors may have influenced the individual decisions to treat or not. But in their study, Wisnivesky and his colleagues did their best to account for patient characteristics, tumor size, type of surgery, complications and other possible differences.

No matter how they analyzed the data, however, they were unable to find a survival benefit linked to radiation treatment after surgery.

According to Sher, the therapy typically costs between $10,000 and $15,000.

"That being said," he added, "if it prevents the recurrence it also saves a lot of money later."

Dr. Benjamin Smith, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said the kind of patients in the new study have a grim prognosis, with at most 20 to 30 percent surviving more than five years.

"Some physicians want to try to do everything they can to get a benefit," said Smith, who wasn't involved in the research. "This data, however, makes me reconsider whether or not there truly is a benefit with respect to patient survival, which at the end of the day is the most important outcome."

He said immediate side effects of radiation include fatigue, skin reactions and pain when swallowing. Down the road, it may also weaken the heart and the lungs.

"I don't think that radiation is likely to cause life-threatening side effects, but it is certainly inconvenient and can impair a patient's quality of life," Smith told Reuters Health.

There is currently a rigorous clinical trial under way that may shed more light on whether postoperative radiation is a good idea for lung cancer that turns out to have invaded the lymph nodes in the chest -- a relatively uncommon scenario.

Meanwhile, patients and doctors should weigh the pros and cons together, said Smith.

"It's worth patients having a discussion with their surgeon and radiation oncologist about whether or not to do radiation after surgery," he said.

SOURCES: http://bit.ly/h73jcS Cancer, online February 13, 2012.

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Short Breaks During Exercise OK for Diabetes Control: Study

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 8 (HealthDay News) -- Taking short breaks while exercising, or "intermittent" exercise, is an effective way to improve insulin sensitivity and blood sugar control in people with type 2 diabetes, according to a new British study.

The researchers also found that exercising in a low-oxygen (hypoxic) environment improves blood sugar control more than intermittent exercise alone.

The study results were released online in advance of publication in the April print issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Previous studies have focused on how continuous aerobic exercise and resistance exercise affect blood sugar (glucose) in people with type 2 diabetes. Few studies have assessed the effects of intermittent exercise, the researchers said.

"Current guidelines suggest that health benefits can be gained when patients with type 2 diabetes spend 30 minutes exercising each day, but published data has failed to show intermittent exercise to be effective," lead author Richard Mackenzie, of the University of Westminster in London, said in a news release from the Endocrine Society.

"Here we have shown that intermittent exercise seems to improve the glucose profiles of type 2 diabetics with a greater positive effect when intermittent exercise is combined with mild hypoxia, similar to doing the exercise at altitudes of 2,500 meters" (more than 8,000 feet), he added.

The study included eight men with type 2 diabetes who did three types of exercise routines: 60 minutes of continuous exercise in a low-oxygen environment; intermittent exercise in a low-oxygen environment; and intermittent exercise in a normal oxygen environment. Those in the intermittent groups had periodic 5-minute rest breaks.

The researchers found that both intermittent and continuous exercise with and without hypoxia led to improvements in the patients' insulin sensitivity.

"A combination of moderately reduced oxygen levels with exercise can significantly improve the body's ability to respond to insulin in type 2 diabetic patients over exercise alone," Mackenzie said in the news release. The findings suggest that it may be possible to use exercise in a low-oxygen environment for treatment of type 2 diabetes, he added.

More information

The American Diabetes Association has more about exercise.

View the original article here

Study on mice shows fasting weakens cancer

Early research on mice with cancer shows that fasting may weaken tumors and help chemotherapy work better, scientists said on Wednesday.

While it remains unknown if the same approach could work in humans, or if it would even be safe, researchers said the findings suggest a promising new route of study for improving response to cancer treatment.

In the mice experiments, "the combination of fasting cycles plus chemotherapy was either more or much more effective than chemo alone," said senior author Valter Longo, professor of gerontology and biological sciences at the University of Southern California (USC).

Longo and colleagues previously published findings in 2008 that showed how fasting protected normal cells against chemotherapy in a study that focused on one type of cancer and a single chemo drug.

The latest study expands on that research to show that fasting makes cancer cells more vulnerable, and spanned several different types of cancer in mice.

Types of cancers studied included breast cancer, melanoma, glioma and human neuroblastoma.

All cancers studied showed that fasting combined with chemotherapy improved survival, slowed the growth of tumors and/or limited their spread.

The study appears in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

"We don't know whether in humans it's effective," Longo said, adding that for now fasting should be "off-limits" to cancer patients, although they should feel they can ask their doctors about the possibility.

In 2010, a small study of 10 human cancer patients who tried fasting cycles with their drug treatment showed that they perceived fewer side effects from chemo, according to self-reported data. The study was published in the journal Aging.

The results of a phase 1 trial assessing the safety of fasting two days before and one day after chemotherapy in patients with breast, urinary tract and ovarian cancer, conducted at the USC, have been submitted for presentation at the annual meeting of the American Society of Cancer Oncologists later this year.

"A way to beat cancer cells may not be to try to find drugs that kill them specifically but to confuse them by generating extreme environments, such as fasting that only normal cells can quickly respond to," Longo said.

ksh/rl

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Tiny electrical shocks to the brain enhance memory: study

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Lightly shocking a person's brain just before they learned a new task appeared to strengthen memory in a handful of patients with epilepsy, a tantalizing result that could have implications for Alzheimer's disease, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

Pacemaker devices known as deep brain stimulators made by Medtronic and St. Jude Medical are already used to calm muscle tremors in patients with Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders, and are being tested for a host of other conditions such as treatment-resistant depression.

The devices are implanted under the skin in the chest with wires leading up the neck connected to tiny electrodes implanted deep in the brain, which produce electrical impulses.

The current study was done at the University of California at Los Angeles in seven epileptic patients awaiting surgery who had electrodes implanted deep in their brains to help pinpoint the source of their seizures. The team used this opportunity to see how stimulating the brain affects memory.

They focused on an area of the brain called the entorhinal cortex, which helps form and store memories.

"The entorhinal cortex is the golden gate to the brain's memory mainframe," Dr. Itzhak Fried, professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, who worked on the study, said in a telephone interview. The research was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Fried said sensory experiences that eventually become memories pass through this hub before they are stored in the hippocampus, the brain's chief memory center.

For the study, patients played a video game in which they had to shuttle people around in taxis to different shops in a virtual city. The team tested whether stimulating the entorhinal cortex or the hippocampus while they were learning their way around the city improved their recall.

"When we stimulated the hippocampus itself, there was not an effect. It was really stimulation in the gateway to the hippocampus - the entorhinal cortex - where we got the beneficial effect in terms of memory," Fried said.

Compared to testing before stimulation, zapping this part of the brain helped people recognize landmarks and navigate the virtual city more quickly. Fried said the findings suggest stimulating the brain just as memories are forming is key.

IMPACT ON ALZHEIMER'S

In Alzheimer's disease, this area of the brain is affected early on, when signs of dementia begin to appear.

Fried said the study might have implications for treatments for patients with early Alzheimer's disease, but he cautioned that the results are very preliminary.

"The question would be whether this can help memory in patients with memory impairments," he said. Scientists are increasingly focused on ways to treat the memory-robbing disease, which affects more than 5 million Americans.

Despite costly efforts, no drug has been found that can keep Alzheimer's from progressing, and policymakers are growing increasingly worried about the swelling ranks of dementia patients as the population ages.

Suzanne Haber, a neuroscientist at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York who was not involved in the study, said she was "very excited about the finding," but she cautioned that the treatment is very invasive, very expensive and unproven in Alzheimer's patients.

The Obama administration said on Wednesday it plans to spend an additional $156 million over the next two years to help find an effective treatment for Alzheimer's.

One team has already tried deep brain stimulation in Alzheimer's patients. In a study published in the Annals of Neurology in 2010 researchers tested deep brain stimulation in six patients over the course of a year and found the treatment to be relatively safe. They also saw signs the treatment might have an effect on memory.

Dr. Sandra Black, a brain researcher at the University of Toronto who wrote an editorial on the current study, said the findings could have implications for early stage Alzheimer's disease if tests were developed to identify this process early through imaging or genomics.

"Although the current evidence is preliminary, is based on small samples and requires replication, the potential application of deep-brain stimulation in amnestic disorders is enticing," Black wrote.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Todd Eastham)

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Cancer drug reverses Alzheimer's in mice: study

A widely available cancer drug has shown remarkable success in reversing Alzheimer's disease in mice, raising hope of a breakthrough against incurable dementia in humans, US researchers said Thursday.

Mice treated with the drug, known as bexarotene, became rapidly smarter and the plaque in their brains that was causing Alzheimer's started to disappear within hours, said the research in the US journal Science.

"We were shocked and amazed," lead author Gary Landreth, a professor in the Department of Neurosciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Ohio, told AFP.

"Things like this had never, ever been seen before," he said.

The drug works by boosting levels of a protein, Apolipoprotein E (ApoE), that helps clear amyloid plaque buildup in the brain, a key hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.

"Think of this as a garbage disposal," Landreth said.

"When we are young and healthy, all of us can basically get rid of this (amyloid) and degrade it and grind it into small bits and it gets cleared.

"Many of us will be unable to do this as efficiently as we age. And this is associated with mental decline or cognitive impairment."

Six hours after mice got the drug, which works through the liver to boost retinoid X receptors (RXR), stimulating production of ApoE in the brain, soluble amyloid levels fell 25 percent, ultimately reaching a 75 percent drop.

The effect lasted up to three days, said the study.

Soon after taking the drug, mice began performing better in tests, showing that they were able to remember things again, were more social and were able to smell again, a sense that is commonly lost in Alzheimer's.

Also, unlike normal mice, Alzheimer's mice will not usually build nests if given tissue paper in their cage, as if they have forgotten to associate paper with the opportunity to nest.

But 72 hours after treatment, the Alzheimer's mice began to build nests again.

"They are not great nests but they are nests nonetheless," added Landreth, suggesting that if the drug can be shown to work in humans it might be best targeted at people in the early stages of the disease.

Clinical trials for humans are being designed and should produce early results in the coming year, researchers said.

Bexarotene was initially made by US-based Ligand Pharmaceuticals under the brand name Targretin.

It gained orphan drug status in the United States -- approval by the US Food and Drug Administration -- in 1999 as a treatment for cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, a rare cancer of the immune system that manifests in the skin and liver.

The Japanese pharmaceutical giant Eisai bought the worldwide rights for it in 2006. Bexarotene is now available in 26 countries in Europe, North America and South America.

Scott Turner, director of the Georgetown University Medical Center's Memory Disorders Program, who was not involved in the research, welcomed the findings.

"This looks very exciting," he said. "This is a brand new way to move forward in human trials of Alzheimer's disease and it works great with mice."

Turner, a neurologist and leading expert in Alzheimer's disease, however cautioned that more study was needed to see if the same results can be seen in humans.

"One obstacle is that the mice may not be a good model of Alzheimer's disease. We have so many things that work in mice and we try them in humans and they just completely fail," he said.

Bexarotene has a good safety profile, though women who are pregnant or may become pregnant are warned to stay away from it because it risks causing fetal defects.

Typical side effects include diarrhea, dizziness, nausea, dry skin and trouble sleeping.

Since the drug is typically given to cancer patients, Landreth said there have been no anecdotal reports of improved memory in humans, since most do not live long enough to reach the stage of Alzheimer's.

"We have clinical consultants or dermatologists who use this all the time but they hadn't thought to look at this so there is very little anecdotal data around."

Trials should begin in the next month or so, Landreth said.

"Perhaps the most important thing is to ask the question: Does this drug work in human beings as it does in mice? Does it get into the brain? And does it have an effect on amyloid levels and increase ApoE levels?

"We need to do that in normal human beings and see if humans are like mice."

Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia afflict 35.6 million people worldwide, with cases forecast to nearly double by 2030, according to Alzheimer's Disease International which puts the annual global costs of the disease at $604 billion.

View the original article here

Fasting Plus Chemo May Help in Cancer Fight: Study

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 8 (HealthDay News) -- Fasting, especially when combined with chemotherapy, appears to slow the growth of cancerous tumors in mice, new research suggests.

Experts note that the results of animal studies often don't hold up when tried in humans.

However, researchers have started testing whether fasting can help human patients with breast, ovarian and urinary tract cancer.

In the mouse study, published in the current issue of Science Translational Medicine, researchers found that fasting slowed the growth of growth of breast cancer, melanoma, glioma and human neuroblastoma in mice.

In some cases, fasting was as effective as chemotherapy, according to the study.

"The combination of fasting cycles plus chemotherapy was either more or much more effective than chemo alone," senior study author Valter Longo, a professor of gerontology and biological sciences at the University of Southern California, said in a university news release.

Researchers said that normal cells deprived of nutrients during fasting enter a dormant state, whereas when studied in the lab, a type of cancer cell attempted to keep growing and dividing.

That, in turn, led to a "cascade of events" that damaged the cancer cells' DNA and led to cell death.

"A way to beat cancer cells may not be to try to find drugs that kill them specifically but to confuse them by generating extreme environments, such as fasting, that only normal cells can quickly respond to," Longo concluded.

The study authors noted that results from the initial phase of a clinical trial, which involved patients with breast, urinary tract and ovarian cancer conducted at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, have been submitted for presentation at the annual meeting of the American Society of Cancer Oncologists. This trial tested the safety of short-term fasts two days before and one day after chemotherapy.

"We don't know whether in humans it's effective," Longo said. "It should be off limits to patients, but a patient should be able to go to their oncologist and say, 'What about fasting with chemotherapy or without' if chemotherapy was not recommended or considered?"

The researchers warned that fasting may not be safe for all cancer patients, particularly those who have already lost a significant amount of weight or have other conditions, such as diabetes. They added that fasting can cause headaches and a drop in blood pressure. The study also pointed out that cancer-free survival resulting from fasting may not extend to large tumors.

According to the American Cancer Society, "available scientific evidence does not support claims that fasting is effective for preventing or treating cancer. Even a short-term fast can have negative health effects, while fasting for a longer time could cause serious health problems."

More information

The American Cancer Society provides more information on fasting and cancer.

View the original article here

Cancer drug reverses Alzheimer's in mice: study

A widely available cancer drug has shown remarkable success in reversing Alzheimer's disease in mice, raising hope of a breakthrough against incurable dementia in humans, US researchers said Thursday.

Mice treated with the drug, known as bexarotene, became rapidly smarter and the plaque in their brains that was causing Alzheimer's started to disappear within hours, said the research in the US journal Science.

"We were shocked and amazed," lead author Gary Landreth, a professor in the Department of Neurosciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Ohio, told AFP.

"Things like this had never, ever been seen before," he said.

The drug works by boosting levels of a protein, Apolipoprotein E (ApoE), that helps clear amyloid plaque buildup in the brain, a key hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.

"Think of this as a garbage disposal," Landreth said.

"When we are young and healthy, all of us can basically get rid of this (amyloid) and degrade it and grind it into small bits and it gets cleared.

"Many of us will be unable to do this as efficiently as we age. And this is associated with mental decline or cognitive impairment."

Six hours after mice got the drug, which works through the liver to boost retinoid X receptors (RXR), stimulating production of ApoE in the brain, soluble amyloid levels fell 25 percent, ultimately reaching a 75 percent drop.

The effect lasted up to three days, said the study.

Soon after taking the drug, mice began performing better in tests, showing that they were able to remember things again, were more social and were able to smell again, a sense that is commonly lost in Alzheimer's.

Also, unlike normal mice, Alzheimer's mice will not usually build nests if given tissue paper in their cage, as if they have forgotten to associate paper with the opportunity to nest.

But 72 hours after treatment, the Alzheimer's mice began to build nests again.

"They are not great nests but they are nests nonetheless," added Landreth, suggesting that if the drug can be shown to work in humans it might be best targeted at people in the early stages of the disease.

Clinical trials for humans are being designed and should produce early results in the coming year, researchers said.

Bexarotene was initially made by US-based Ligand Pharmaceuticals under the brand name Targretin.

It gained orphan drug status in the United States -- approval by the US Food and Drug Administration -- in 1999 as a treatment for cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, a rare cancer of the immune system that manifests in the skin and liver.

The Japanese pharmaceutical giant Eisai bought the worldwide rights for it in 2006. Bexarotene is now available in 26 countries in Europe, North America and South America.

Scott Turner, director of the Georgetown University Medical Center's Memory Disorders Program, who was not involved in the research, welcomed the findings.

"This looks very exciting," he said. "This is a brand new way to move forward in human trials of Alzheimer's disease and it works great with mice."

Turner, a neurologist and leading expert in Alzheimer's disease, however cautioned that more study was needed to see if the same results can be seen in humans.

"One obstacle is that the mice may not be a good model of Alzheimer's disease. We have so many things that work in mice and we try them in humans and they just completely fail," he said.

Bexarotene has a good safety profile, though women who are pregnant or may become pregnant are warned to stay away from it because it risks causing fetal defects.

Typical side effects include diarrhea, dizziness, nausea, dry skin and trouble sleeping.

Since the drug is typically given to cancer patients, Landreth said there have been no anecdotal reports of improved memory in humans, since most do not live long enough to reach the stage of Alzheimer's.

"We have clinical consultants or dermatologists who use this all the time but they hadn't thought to look at this so there is very little anecdotal data around."

Trials should begin in the next month or so, Landreth said.

"Perhaps the most important thing is to ask the question: Does this drug work in human beings as it does in mice? Does it get into the brain? And does it have an effect on amyloid levels and increase ApoE levels?

"We need to do that in normal human beings and see if humans are like mice."

Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia afflict 35.6 million people worldwide, with cases forecast to nearly double by 2030, according to Alzheimer's Disease International which puts the annual global costs of the disease at $604 billion.

View the original article here

Study on mice shows fasting weakens cancer

Early research on mice with cancer shows that fasting may weaken tumors and help chemotherapy work better, scientists said on Wednesday.

While it remains unknown if the same approach could work in humans, or if it would even be safe, researchers said the findings suggest a promising new route of study for improving response to cancer treatment.

In the mice experiments, "the combination of fasting cycles plus chemotherapy was either more or much more effective than chemo alone," said senior author Valter Longo, professor of gerontology and biological sciences at the University of Southern California (USC).

Longo and colleagues previously published findings in 2008 that showed how fasting protected normal cells against chemotherapy in a study that focused on one type of cancer and a single chemo drug.

The latest study expands on that research to show that fasting makes cancer cells more vulnerable, and spanned several different types of cancer in mice.

Types of cancers studied included breast cancer, melanoma, glioma and human neuroblastoma.

All cancers studied showed that fasting combined with chemotherapy improved survival, slowed the growth of tumors and/or limited their spread.

The study appears in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

"We don't know whether in humans it's effective," Longo said, adding that for now fasting should be "off-limits" to cancer patients, although they should feel they can ask their doctors about the possibility.

In 2010, a small study of 10 human cancer patients who tried fasting cycles with their drug treatment showed that they perceived fewer side effects from chemo, according to self-reported data. The study was published in the journal Aging.

The results of a phase 1 trial assessing the safety of fasting two days before and one day after chemotherapy in patients with breast, urinary tract and ovarian cancer, conducted at the USC, have been submitted for presentation at the annual meeting of the American Society of Cancer Oncologists later this year.

"A way to beat cancer cells may not be to try to find drugs that kill them specifically but to confuse them by generating extreme environments, such as fasting that only normal cells can quickly respond to," Longo said.

ksh/rl

View the original article here

Cancer drug reverses Alzheimer's in mice: study

A widely available cancer drug has shown remarkable success in reversing Alzheimer's disease in mice, raising hope of a breakthrough against incurable dementia in humans, US researchers said Thursday.

Mice treated with the drug, known as bexarotene, became rapidly smarter and the plaque in their brains that was causing Alzheimer's started to disappear within hours, said the research in the US journal Science.

"We were shocked and amazed," lead author Gary Landreth, a professor in the Department of Neurosciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Ohio, told AFP.

"Things like this had never, ever been seen before," he said.

The drug works by boosting levels of a protein, Apolipoprotein E (ApoE), that helps clear amyloid plaque buildup in the brain, a key hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.

"Think of this as a garbage disposal," Landreth said.

"When we are young and healthy, all of us can basically get rid of this (amyloid) and degrade it and grind it into small bits and it gets cleared.

"Many of us will be unable to do this as efficiently as we age. And this is associated with mental decline or cognitive impairment."

Six hours after mice got the drug, which works through the liver to boost retinoid X receptors (RXR), stimulating production of ApoE in the brain, soluble amyloid levels fell 25 percent, ultimately reaching a 75 percent drop.

The effect lasted up to three days, said the study.

Soon after taking the drug, mice began performing better in tests, showing that they were able to remember things again, were more social and were able to smell again, a sense that is commonly lost in Alzheimer's.

Also, unlike normal mice, Alzheimer's mice will not usually build nests if given tissue paper in their cage, as if they have forgotten to associate paper with the opportunity to nest.

But 72 hours after treatment, the Alzheimer's mice began to build nests again.

"They are not great nests but they are nests nonetheless," added Landreth, suggesting that if the drug can be shown to work in humans it might be best targeted at people in the early stages of the disease.

Clinical trials for humans are being designed and should produce early results in the coming year, researchers said.

Bexarotene was initially made by US-based Ligand Pharmaceuticals under the brand name Targretin.

It gained orphan drug status in the United States -- approval by the US Food and Drug Administration -- in 1999 as a treatment for cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, a rare cancer of the immune system that manifests in the skin and liver.

The Japanese pharmaceutical giant Eisai bought the worldwide rights for it in 2006. Bexarotene is now available in 26 countries in Europe, North America and South America.

Scott Turner, director of the Georgetown University Medical Center's Memory Disorders Program, who was not involved in the research, welcomed the findings.

"This looks very exciting," he said. "This is a brand new way to move forward in human trials of Alzheimer's disease and it works great with mice."

Turner, a neurologist and leading expert in Alzheimer's disease, however cautioned that more study was needed to see if the same results can be seen in humans.

"One obstacle is that the mice may not be a good model of Alzheimer's disease. We have so many things that work in mice and we try them in humans and they just completely fail," he said.

Bexarotene has a good safety profile, though women who are pregnant or may become pregnant are warned to stay away from it because it risks causing fetal defects.

Typical side effects include diarrhea, dizziness, nausea, dry skin and trouble sleeping.

Since the drug is typically given to cancer patients, Landreth said there have been no anecdotal reports of improved memory in humans, since most do not live long enough to reach the stage of Alzheimer's.

"We have clinical consultants or dermatologists who use this all the time but they hadn't thought to look at this so there is very little anecdotal data around."

Trials should begin in the next month or so, Landreth said.

"Perhaps the most important thing is to ask the question: Does this drug work in human beings as it does in mice? Does it get into the brain? And does it have an effect on amyloid levels and increase ApoE levels?

"We need to do that in normal human beings and see if humans are like mice."

Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia afflict 35.6 million people worldwide, with cases forecast to nearly double by 2030, according to Alzheimer's Disease International which puts the annual global costs of the disease at $604 billion.

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Study on mice shows fasting weakens cancer

Early research on mice with cancer shows that fasting may weaken tumors and help chemotherapy work better, scientists said on Wednesday.

While it remains unknown if the same approach could work in humans, or if it would even be safe, researchers said the findings suggest a promising new route of study for improving response to cancer treatment.

In the mice experiments, "the combination of fasting cycles plus chemotherapy was either more or much more effective than chemo alone," said senior author Valter Longo, professor of gerontology and biological sciences at the University of Southern California (USC).

Longo and colleagues previously published findings in 2008 that showed how fasting protected normal cells against chemotherapy in a study that focused on one type of cancer and a single chemo drug.

The latest study expands on that research to show that fasting makes cancer cells more vulnerable, and spanned several different types of cancer in mice.

Types of cancers studied included breast cancer, melanoma, glioma and human neuroblastoma.

All cancers studied showed that fasting combined with chemotherapy improved survival, slowed the growth of tumors and/or limited their spread.

The study appears in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

"We don't know whether in humans it's effective," Longo said, adding that for now fasting should be "off-limits" to cancer patients, although they should feel they can ask their doctors about the possibility.

In 2010, a small study of 10 human cancer patients who tried fasting cycles with their drug treatment showed that they perceived fewer side effects from chemo, according to self-reported data. The study was published in the journal Aging.

The results of a phase 1 trial assessing the safety of fasting two days before and one day after chemotherapy in patients with breast, urinary tract and ovarian cancer, conducted at the USC, have been submitted for presentation at the annual meeting of the American Society of Cancer Oncologists later this year.

"A way to beat cancer cells may not be to try to find drugs that kill them specifically but to confuse them by generating extreme environments, such as fasting that only normal cells can quickly respond to," Longo said.

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Fasting Plus Chemo May Help in Cancer Fight: Study

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 8 (HealthDay News) -- Fasting, especially when combined with chemotherapy, appears to slow the growth of cancerous tumors in mice, new research suggests.

Experts note that the results of animal studies often don't hold up when tried in humans.

However, researchers have started testing whether fasting can help human patients with breast, ovarian and urinary tract cancer.

In the mouse study, published in the current issue of Science Translational Medicine, researchers found that fasting slowed the growth of growth of breast cancer, melanoma, glioma and human neuroblastoma in mice.

In some cases, fasting was as effective as chemotherapy, according to the study.

"The combination of fasting cycles plus chemotherapy was either more or much more effective than chemo alone," senior study author Valter Longo, a professor of gerontology and biological sciences at the University of Southern California, said in a university news release.

Researchers said that normal cells deprived of nutrients during fasting enter a dormant state, whereas when studied in the lab, a type of cancer cell attempted to keep growing and dividing.

That, in turn, led to a "cascade of events" that damaged the cancer cells' DNA and led to cell death.

"A way to beat cancer cells may not be to try to find drugs that kill them specifically but to confuse them by generating extreme environments, such as fasting, that only normal cells can quickly respond to," Longo concluded.

The study authors noted that results from the initial phase of a clinical trial, which involved patients with breast, urinary tract and ovarian cancer conducted at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, have been submitted for presentation at the annual meeting of the American Society of Cancer Oncologists. This trial tested the safety of short-term fasts two days before and one day after chemotherapy.

"We don't know whether in humans it's effective," Longo said. "It should be off limits to patients, but a patient should be able to go to their oncologist and say, 'What about fasting with chemotherapy or without' if chemotherapy was not recommended or considered?"

The researchers warned that fasting may not be safe for all cancer patients, particularly those who have already lost a significant amount of weight or have other conditions, such as diabetes. They added that fasting can cause headaches and a drop in blood pressure. The study also pointed out that cancer-free survival resulting from fasting may not extend to large tumors.

According to the American Cancer Society, "available scientific evidence does not support claims that fasting is effective for preventing or treating cancer. Even a short-term fast can have negative health effects, while fasting for a longer time could cause serious health problems."

More information

The American Cancer Society provides more information on fasting and cancer.

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Short Breaks During Exercise OK for Diabetes Control: Study

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 8 (HealthDay News) -- Taking short breaks while exercising, or "intermittent" exercise, is an effective way to improve insulin sensitivity and blood sugar control in people with type 2 diabetes, according to a new British study.

The researchers also found that exercising in a low-oxygen (hypoxic) environment improves blood sugar control more than intermittent exercise alone.

The study results were released online in advance of publication in the April print issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Previous studies have focused on how continuous aerobic exercise and resistance exercise affect blood sugar (glucose) in people with type 2 diabetes. Few studies have assessed the effects of intermittent exercise, the researchers said.

"Current guidelines suggest that health benefits can be gained when patients with type 2 diabetes spend 30 minutes exercising each day, but published data has failed to show intermittent exercise to be effective," lead author Richard Mackenzie, of the University of Westminster in London, said in a news release from the Endocrine Society.

"Here we have shown that intermittent exercise seems to improve the glucose profiles of type 2 diabetics with a greater positive effect when intermittent exercise is combined with mild hypoxia, similar to doing the exercise at altitudes of 2,500 meters" (more than 8,000 feet), he added.

The study included eight men with type 2 diabetes who did three types of exercise routines: 60 minutes of continuous exercise in a low-oxygen environment; intermittent exercise in a low-oxygen environment; and intermittent exercise in a normal oxygen environment. Those in the intermittent groups had periodic 5-minute rest breaks.

The researchers found that both intermittent and continuous exercise with and without hypoxia led to improvements in the patients' insulin sensitivity.

"A combination of moderately reduced oxygen levels with exercise can significantly improve the body's ability to respond to insulin in type 2 diabetic patients over exercise alone," Mackenzie said in the news release. The findings suggest that it may be possible to use exercise in a low-oxygen environment for treatment of type 2 diabetes, he added.

More information

The American Diabetes Association has more about exercise.

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Tiny electrical shocks to the brain enhance memory: study

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Lightly shocking a person's brain just before they learned a new task appeared to strengthen memory in a handful of patients with epilepsy, a tantalizing result that could have implications for Alzheimer's disease, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

Pacemaker devices known as deep brain stimulators made by Medtronic and St. Jude Medical are already used to calm muscle tremors in patients with Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders, and are being tested for a host of other conditions such as treatment-resistant depression.

The devices are implanted under the skin in the chest with wires leading up the neck connected to tiny electrodes implanted deep in the brain, which produce electrical impulses.

The current study was done at the University of California at Los Angeles in seven epileptic patients awaiting surgery who had electrodes implanted deep in their brains to help pinpoint the source of their seizures. The team used this opportunity to see how stimulating the brain affects memory.

They focused on an area of the brain called the entorhinal cortex, which helps form and store memories.

"The entorhinal cortex is the golden gate to the brain's memory mainframe," Dr. Itzhak Fried, professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, who worked on the study, said in a telephone interview. The research was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Fried said sensory experiences that eventually become memories pass through this hub before they are stored in the hippocampus, the brain's chief memory center.

For the study, patients played a video game in which they had to shuttle people around in taxis to different shops in a virtual city. The team tested whether stimulating the entorhinal cortex or the hippocampus while they were learning their way around the city improved their recall.

"When we stimulated the hippocampus itself, there was not an effect. It was really stimulation in the gateway to the hippocampus - the entorhinal cortex - where we got the beneficial effect in terms of memory," Fried said.

Compared to testing before stimulation, zapping this part of the brain helped people recognize landmarks and navigate the virtual city more quickly. Fried said the findings suggest stimulating the brain just as memories are forming is key.

IMPACT ON ALZHEIMER'S

In Alzheimer's disease, this area of the brain is affected early on, when signs of dementia begin to appear.

Fried said the study might have implications for treatments for patients with early Alzheimer's disease, but he cautioned that the results are very preliminary.

"The question would be whether this can help memory in patients with memory impairments," he said. Scientists are increasingly focused on ways to treat the memory-robbing disease, which affects more than 5 million Americans.

Despite costly efforts, no drug has been found that can keep Alzheimer's from progressing, and policymakers are growing increasingly worried about the swelling ranks of dementia patients as the population ages.

Suzanne Haber, a neuroscientist at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York who was not involved in the study, said she was "very excited about the finding," but she cautioned that the treatment is very invasive, very expensive and unproven in Alzheimer's patients.

The Obama administration said on Wednesday it plans to spend an additional $156 million over the next two years to help find an effective treatment for Alzheimer's.

One team has already tried deep brain stimulation in Alzheimer's patients. In a study published in the Annals of Neurology in 2010 researchers tested deep brain stimulation in six patients over the course of a year and found the treatment to be relatively safe. They also saw signs the treatment might have an effect on memory.

Dr. Sandra Black, a brain researcher at the University of Toronto who wrote an editorial on the current study, said the findings could have implications for early stage Alzheimer's disease if tests were developed to identify this process early through imaging or genomics.

"Although the current evidence is preliminary, is based on small samples and requires replication, the potential application of deep-brain stimulation in amnestic disorders is enticing," Black wrote.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Todd Eastham)

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Blurry line in diagnosing early Alzheimer's: study

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The revised definition of a brain condition called mild cognitive impairment means that many people now considered to have mild or early Alzheimer's disease could easily be given that diagnosis instead, suggests a new study.

Mild cognitive impairment is already seen by doctors as the first hint of a future Alzheimer's diagnosis in many cases. And the new definition will blur those lines even more, the new report concludes -- begging the question of whether it should be its own diagnosis at all.

"There's been a lot of controversy... about the whole classification called mild cognitive impairment," said Dr. Peter Whitehouse, a geriatric neurologist at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, who wasn't involved in the study.

"The major issue since the beginning (has been) defining its boundaries. Inventing a label like this," he told Reuters Health, "creates confusion."

Mild cognitive impairment was originally diagnosed in people with memory problems but no other difficulties in thinking and reasoning abilities or in completing daily activities.

But that definition has morphed over time to include more people, and in recent recommendations made for the National Institute on Aging and the Alzheimer's Association, now covers people with some trouble doing household chores and hobbies, according to Dr. John Morris, from Washington University in St. Louis.

Those functional problems have traditionally been part of an early Alzheimer's diagnosis.

Morris, the new study's sole author, said he thinks there's so much confusion because most cases of mild cognitive impairment really are the first signs of Alzheimer's.

Other cognitive problems could be due to a stroke, certain medications or thyroid problems, he said -- things that doctors could find explanations for if they kept looking and don't require a separate diagnosis or label, he said.

Morris examined data on more than 17,000 people evaluated for Alzheimer's disease at 33 different centers between 2005 and 2011, including about 6,000 who were originally diagnosed with full-on Alzheimer's or mild dementia related to Alzheimer's.

Those people were 75 years old when they were tested, on average, according to the report published in Archives of Neurology.

Morris determined that based on the new definition of mild cognitive impairment -- including the criterion that someone can have some difficulty with everyday activities -- almost every person with "very mild" Alzheimer's disease dementia could be diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment instead.

That was also the case for more than 90 percent of people with "mild" Alzheimer's disease.

The overlap could lead to a lot of subjective decisions on the part of doctors, according to Morris, when it comes to who has early Alzheimer's and who has mild cognitive impairment -- or to avoiding an Alzheimer's diagnosis because it's seen as "stigmatizing," Morris told Reuters Health.

But that's not usually a good thing for patients and their families, he added.

"If we think the cause of the cognitive impairment is underlying Alzheimer's, by providing the diagnosis to the best of our accuracy, it does allow the patient and the family to start dealing with the reality of the disease at a stage when the patient still has plenty of cognitive ability to participate in those decisions," Morris said.

According to the Alzheimer's Association, 5.4 million people in the United States have the disease, including one in eight aged 65 and older.

Creighton Phelps, head of the Alzheimer's Disease Centers Program at the National Institute on Aging, said that to a certain extent, the line between mild cognitive impairment and early Alzheimer's is indeed "fuzzy" and depends on a doctor's individual judgment. But he added that many researchers still think there's a point in between normal thinking and functioning and Alzheimer's dementia that deserves its own category.

"What other experts say is, you should not be calling it dementia too early, until you're absolutely sure about it," Phelps told Reuters Health.

"In (mild cognitive impairment), you pick up some very early changes. They don't have to quit their job, it's not interfering with their life, but it's measureable," he said. "It's not enough to move them into the dementia category."

Whitehouse said that all of the divisions between normal and mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's miss the most important point: that everyone, as they age, should be taking steps to maintain their brain health. That includes keeping your mind and body active, eating a healthy, Mediterranean-style diet and keeping engaged socially, he added.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/xHTMf8 Archives of Neurology, online February 6, 2012.

(This story was corrected to change the journal name in paragraph 11, the source line and study link)

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