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."

BPA and male sexual dysfunction

BPA and other estrogen-like chemicals are increasingly being linked to male sexual dysfunction and development impairments of the brain and thyroid. Such as dropping semen counts, undescended testes, erectile dysfunction, and others.
BPA is one of the 5 most commonly used chemicals in the world. It’s in plastics, DVDs, sunglasses, and used as a powder coating on printed receipts.

Boost of Protein for middle-eged men and other words of wisdom

Curtesy of Photostock/FreeDigitalPhoto.net

Hitting 40 marks a turning point for many men and their health.

Their metabolism slows, leading to the dreaded belly and the first signs of aging and long-term disease — raised blood cholesterol and high blood pressure — begin to appear.

Increased body mass index (BMI) and heightened sense of mortality is often enough to kick start a new regimen, which usually means choosing low-fat foods and taking up jogging as an obvious health choice.There are strong indications that such diets for man in their fifties and up could be making their long-term health worse.Why? Low fat diets are usualy high in sugar and carbs - upto 67%.

Men heading toward the big 6-0 want to keep or build muscle mass, they need to increase the amount of protein they eat - especially after each resistance workout. One study found that doubling intake from 21 grams to 42 grams of protein is optimal for building more muscle fibers and keeping a toned physique. But no one should get all that protein from fatty meat.

For every meal, energy should, instead, come from protein (in the form of meat, fish, eggs and cheese) and a wide variety of fruit, vegetables and salads.

When we consume proteins, the body breaks them down into amino acids, which are absorbed through the wall of the bowel and form skin, bones, muscles, tendons, and all the organs such as the brain and the heart.

Consider grains and vegetables: beans, lentils, brown rice and our favorites - almonds, walnuts, pecans, pistachios, cashews and pine nuts. spinach, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, chia, tofu and tempeh are also rich source of proteins.

Here are some more key recommendations from Dr Clark author of the book "Health Revolution For Men".

Forget the jogging if you are overweight with poor muscle tone, jogging is a fast track to ruining your hip and knee joints and put unbearable strain on your heart and lungs.

Instead, start exercising slowly and build up your fitness gradually by walking for 20 minutes five times a week, and adding some gentle muscle-building exercises (such as lifting light weights) and stretching.

Exercise your smooth muscle
To ‘exercise’ the smooth muscles, you need roughage (such as green vegetables). This stretches the muscle fibres and helps to press food through the bowel. If you don’t have roughage in your diet, the bowel isn’t stimulated and it becomes dormant — a major cause of bowel cancer.

Water is also vital — drink regularly, not just when you feel thirsty. This keeps the bowel’s contractor muscle moving, prevents constipation and prevents many of the typical diseases that occur in middle age such as cancer, irritable bowel syndrome, colitis and peptic ulcers.

De-stressing is vital: eat healthily and at regular intervals (hunger and poor diet put extra stress on the body), get plenty of sleep and exercise, and try relaxation techniques and deep breathing exercises.

Drink alcohol with moderation. Drink eight to ten cups of water a day. fruit juice is ‘far too high in sugar for general consumption’, coffee causes dehydration and should be restricted to two cups a day, tea to three cups (herbal tea is unlimited), but alcohol is allowed, in moderation.

‘Beers have high carbohydrate content and therefore a greater likelihood of promoting the development of diabetes than those drinks with a low carbohydrate content, such as red wine,’ says Dr Clark, recommending alcohol consumption is limited to two small glasses of red wine per day.

Save your sex life

Testosterone levels naturally fall with age (at a rate of 1-2 per cent per year after the age of 40), but a dwindling libido can also be a symptom of excessive stress and poor diet. Poor nutrition causes physical and mental fatigue, leaving little left over for social interest, let alone sexual activity. Obesity itself also limits libido. In one French study, obese men were 69 per cent less likely to have had more than one sexual partner in a year than men of normal weight.

Another problem at this age can be impotence, which can be an early sign of coronary heart disease and diabetes. It can also be due to atherosclerosis, a systemic condition where plaque builds up inside the arteries, leading to restricted blood flow in the penis.

So how to resolve a flagging libido? Once again the process is simple, says Dr Clark: Reduce refined carbohydrates, reduce stress levels and take more exercise. 
All will help ensure the body is working at optimum levels.


Adapted from
1.Health Revolution For Men by Dr Charles Clark and Maureen Clark © 2012 Dr Charles Clark and Maureen Clark
2.Sources on Internet

Meditation and Brain power

There is a surge in interest in mind calming exercises not only among celebrities and super models.Meditating every day for 5 minutes in the morning and at night eases stress, strengthening our focus and improves our health.
A study, published 2011 in the journal Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, suggests that meditating for just 30 minutes a day for eight weeks can increase the density of gray matter in brain regions associated with memory, stress, and empathy.Other researches point out that meditation helps you out to handle multitasking better.It also makes genes that produce inflammation-triggered proteins less active.Remember the rescent theories that the inflammation is the biggest culprit causing latter atherosclerosis for instance.Check out the book " The end of illness " by David Agus on the subject.Back to the meditation - regular meditators who are 40 to 50 years old have areas in their cerebral cortex that is as thick as the one of 20-30 years olds,defying the long held belief that age inevitably thins the cortex.Meditation does not have to be static - check out the " walking meditation " as well.

New hope for Alzheimer's patients

The first U.S. experiments with "brain pacemakers" for Alzheimer's are getting under way. Scientists are looking beyond drugs to implants in the hunt for much-needed new treatments.
The research is in its infancy. Only a few dozen people with early-stage Alzheimer's will be implanted in a handful of hospitals (as of Mid January 2013). No one knows if it might work, and if it does, how long the effects might last.More than 5 million Americans have Alzheimer's or similar dementias, and that number is expected to rise rapidly as the baby boomers age. Today's drugs only temporarily help some symptoms. Attempts to attack Alzheimer's presumed cause, a brain-clogging gunk, so far haven't panned out.The new approach is called deep brain stimulation, or DBS. While it won't attack Alzheimer's root cause either, "maybe we can make the brain work better," said Dr. Douglas Scharre - Ohio State neurologist.Similar experiments are reported at the University of British Columbia and John Hopkins University.The procedure requires implanting electrodes in the brain and send puses from battery-powered generator near the collarbone , sending the tiny shocks up patients neck and into their brain.


See  another related article about the effect of Cycling therapy for Parkinson's.

Cycling Therapy for Parkinson's

In a study conducted at the Cleveland Clinic, a series of scans on the brains of 26 Parkinson’s patients who used exercise bikes three times a week for two months were taken.
Some patients  pedalled at their own pace, while others undertook ‘forced-rate’ cycling, in which they were made to pedal faster by motors fitted to their bikes.
The scans revealed pedalling, particularly vigorous pedalling, boosted connections between brain regions linked to movement.The results show that forced-rate bicycle exercise is an effective, low-cost therapy for Parkinson’s disease.The scientists are now studying how patients fare with exercise bikes in their homes. They also want to see whether other forms of exercise such as swimming and rowing have similar benefits.
The charity Parkinson’s UK welcomed the research, saying the balance and co-ordination can be badly damaged as the disease progresses.
However, it also cautioned that not all patients will be capable of exercising intensely.