Here’s a scary new theory about Alzheimer’s disease–it may be at least partly caused by eating "junk food." We now know that process food fumes can be dangerous to breathe, and here’s further evidence that it’s dangerous to eat as well.
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If we can’t walk it away, what will we do? Some 5.4 million Americans have Alzheimer’s, and the numbers are expected to swell as the baby boom generation ages. Some very important drug trials are going on right now: people who are genetically guaranteed to develop the disease–but who do not yet have any symptoms–will be given a drug that could stop it.
When the commonly-used skin cancer drug Bexarotene was first tested on mice, it appeared to quickly reverse the pathological, cognitive and memory deficits caused by the onset of Alzheimer’s.
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Of all the millions of animals on Earth, only humans get Alzheimer’s disease, which is caused by the formation of metallic "plaques" in the brain, particularly iron ones.
This may be because this dreaded disease somehow facilitated human evolution. But scientists have discovered a new way to stave it off: EXERCISE.
In PhysOrg.com, Alvin Powell quotes neurologist Bruce Yankner as saying, "Something has occurred in evolution that makes our brain susceptible to age-related change." Was that "something" the same thing that makes humans so SMART?
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Alzheimer’s stinks, but its victims don’t know this because one of the earliest indications that a patient is coming down with this dread disease is loss of the sense of smell. If we learn how to reverse this, we may learn how to REVERSE the disease in the future!
Smell loss can be caused by a number of ailments, exposures and injuries; but since the 1970s, it has been identified as an early sign of this disease. Researchers have found a way to restore this in mice by removing a plaque-forming protein in their brains. Will they be able to reverse the entire disease soon?
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