2014 Nobel price awarded discovery opens window onto Alzheimer's disease

(Reuters) - The discovery of cells in the brain that act as the body's internal global positioning system, which won three scientists the Nobel Prize for medicine on Monday, opens an intriguing new a window onto dementia.
Since these spatial cells are among the first to be hit in Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia -- explaining why sufferers often lose their way -- understanding how they are degraded should shed important light on the disease process.
That is the belief of British-American researcher John O'Keefe, winner of the 2014 prize alongside Norwegians May-Britt and Edvard Moser, who plans to take his research to the next level as director of a new brain institute in London.
"We're now setting up to do much more high-tech studies where we hope to follow the progression of disease over time," he told reporters after hearing he would share the 8 million Swedish crowns ($1.1 million) prize.
"This will give us the first handle as to when and where the disease starts and how we can attack it at a the molecular and cellular level."
The battle against Alzheimer's has been long and frustrating. Global cases of dementia are expected to treble by 2050, yet scientists are still struggling to understand its basic biology and drug development is littered with failures.
The work by O'Keefe and the Mosers will not lead to immediate breakthroughs but by explaining how cells function -- and then fail to function -- in two very specific regions of the brain it is seen as vital for unpicking how Alzheimer's develops.
Dementia, of which Alzheimer's is the most common form, already affects 44 million people worldwide and that number is set to reach 135 million by 2050, according to Alzheimer's Disease International, a non-profit campaign group.
"Understanding how the healthy brain functions, especially areas of the brain crucial to learning and memory, is incredibly important in understanding what changes occur during conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease," said Doug Brown, director of research and development at Britain's Alzheimer's Society.
The Nobel Prize winners' work on the brain's navigation system stretches back more than 40 years, but more recently scientists have developed powerful new tools for studying brain circuits that O'Keefe plans to put to work at the new London research institute where his is director.
The first of more than 150 scientists will start work at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour at University College London next year, using state-of-the-art lasers, molecular biology and computational modeling to explore the brain's intricate wiring.
The Group of Eight leading industrial countries set a goal last December of finding a cure or effective treatment for dementia by 2025.
It is a decade since the last drug was approved to treat Alzheimer's, and there is still no treatment that can slow the progression of the disease, with current drugs only easing some of the symptoms of the disorder.
"We all know there is a time bomb there," O'Keefe said. "We are starting to get a handle on it but that doesn't mean it is going to turn into a cure in the immediate future."

Why C-section my not be good for the baby later in life

Caesarean section births may put babies at higher risk for lifelong health problems by altering the amount of “good” bacteria in an infant’s gut, Canadian researchers are reporting.
Appearing this week in Canada’s top medical journal, the finding could explain why babies delivered via C-sections are at increased risk of asthma, obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, cancer, diabetes and other illnesses.
The study is based on sophisticated DNA testing of 24 babies born in Winnipeg. After analyzing the babies’ fecal samples, researchers found that infants born by C-section lacked a specific group of bacteria found in babies delivered vaginally.
Babies that were exclusively formula fed also had significant differences in their gut bacteria compared with breastfed babies.
“The infant gut microbiota plays a crucial role in lifelong health,” the researchers write in the Canadian Medical Association Journal Among other things, bacteria prime a baby’s immune system, providing protection against disease-causing organisms.
“We want parents (and physicians) to realize that their decisions regarding C-section and breastfeeding can impact their infant’s gut microbiome and this can have potentially lifelong effects on the child’s health,” first author Meghan Azad, of the University of Alberta, said in a statement released with the study.
In Canada, nearly 27 per cent of all babies are delivered via C-section. Doctors say most surgical births are performed for medically valid reasons. But there are concerns too many C-sections are being ordered because labour isn’t progressing quickly enough, and that to many “routine” but unnecessary interventions are now being done that increase the odds of a woman needing a surgical delivery.
Babies, like all mammals, “are naturally inoculated as they pass through the birth canal,” researchers from the University of Colorado and New York University School of Medicine write in a related commentary.
Yet C-sections are rising globally. In the U.S., more than 30 per cent of babies are now born by caesarean. In China and Brazil, nearly half of babies are born by C-section.
“The human body harbours trillions of microbes, known collectively as the ‘human microbiome,’ ” the Canadian team writes in the CMAJ.
“Some people call it the forgotten organ, because it protects us from pathogens and also helps in the absorption of nutrients,” said Dr. Anita Kozyrskyj, research chair and associate professor of the University of Alberta.
“Increasingly we’re learning that these good bacteria are quite important to the development of the immune system in the infant,” she said. “They train the immune cells not to overreact.”
The gut microbiome is laid down or developed during the first year of life after birth. “We start off with almost a clean slate,” Kozyrskyj said. “During (vaginal) delivery, babies acquire mum’s microbes from her vagina and her GI (gastrointestinal) tract.”
Using DNA sequencing technology, the team found that C-section babies had undetectable amounts of Bacteroides, an important gut bacteria involved in priming the immune system.

Compared with breastfed babies, formula-fed infants had higher amounts of C. difficile, which has been linked to allergies and asthma later in life.
The study was based on only a small number of babies (the researchers are now testing 200 more infants). It’s also not clear exactly what makes up the “ideal” infant gut microbiome.
However, “There’s certainly lots of evidence to promote breastfeeding and vaginal delivery,” said Kozyrskyj. Much of the focus on the rising number of C-sections has been on the risks to the mother, she said, but not babies.
“This evidence provides information on the harmful effects of caesarean section delivery on the infant.”

Read more: http://www.canada.com/sections+alter+baby+bacteria+affect+newborn+lifelong+health+Canadian+study+shows/7948346/story.html#ixzz2KjLfe9a8