The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is a collection of cells and cellular components that line the walls of blood vessels in the brain. This barrier is an important part of brain health because it separates the brain from circulating blood. A study led by Walter H. Backes, Ph.D., a professor in medical physics at Maastricht University Medical Center in the Netherlands, has found that the blood-brain barrier was leakier in a group of people with Alzheimer’s disease than in those without the disease. Read more →

When our elders are suffering from physical pain, mental stress, loneliness or the effects of ageism in our society, the result can be depression. Research done at Sweden’s Umeå University and reported on by Medical News Today finds that when group activities were introduced into the elders’ environments, depressive symptoms were often improved and the need for medication reduced or eliminated. Read more →

When dementia symptoms appear it’s natural to fear that the person affected has an incurable form of dementia. Rather than reacting with panic, however, it’s far better to try to remain calm and have a specialist make the determination. Many forms of dementia are incurable, of course, but other conditions can present symptoms that resemble those of dementia but are in fact reversible. Read more →

The virus, which is called a lentivirus vector, is already used in gene therapy. Researchers from Imperial College London, have shown how using this modified virus to deliver a gene, known as PGC1-alpha, to the brain cells of mice destroys the progression of AD. Read more →

Stress has long been considered a major risk for developing Alzheimer’s, but there hasn’t been any real understanding as to why this is so. Now, researchers at the Center for Translational Research in Neurodegenerative Disease at the University of Florida think that they’ve come closer to discovering the connection. Read more →

Throughout the last several decades, caffeine has been alternately touted as hero or villain. For a time, caffeine was blamed for birth defects in children, and healthy eating, in general, meant eliminating food or beverages containing caffeine. Still, one of the most explosive new trends we’ve seen over the last dozen years has been designer coffee shops and kiosks, which show that people will not always follow where health gurus lead. Now the coffee drinkers may be vindicated. Read more →

June is Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness month. What better time to become educated about how to help people who have dementia live a better quality of life, help caregivers with support and resources, and teach others about the many types of dementia and other brain diseases? The National Alzheimer’s Project Act (NAPA) was signed into law in 2011. Read more →

It’s not sexy but it’s real. Many scientists are now looking at the gut as a primary source of many diseases that plague humankind. Probiotics, the prebiotics that they feed upon in the gut, as well as changes in our diet are being studied as possible methods of preventing or curing major diseases. Read more →

Loneliness as a dementia risk, particularly Alzheimer’s disease (AD), has long been considered solid science. It’s hard to quantify loneliness, as it’s not as simple as whether a person has opportunities to interact with others. Yet, the difficulty of defining loneliness has not kept researchers from studying its impact on health. For example, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) reports study results showing that "After adjustment for other risk factors, older persons with feelings of loneliness were more likely to develop dementia” than people without such feelings. Read more →

A procedure that that is already being used for the treatment of some brain diseases is receiving increased attention as a possible treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. Called deep brain stimulation (DBS), an implanted neurostimulator delivers electrical signals that help regulate abnormal signals in the brain caused by the disease. n the U.S., DBS is currently only approved for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor. But the potential for its use is expanding, with more researchers looking into the procedure for epilepsy, depression, bipolar disorder, and now, Alzheimer’s disease. Read more →