NO magic bullet for ALZHEIMER'S.

When I read this article I was saddened. For it's been twenty years since I first was introduced to Alzheimer's. I see now reading this article there is almost nothing new from the Medical Industry. Yes, there are all kinds of guesses, and theories, but nothing written in stone. Read and learn what 'they' have come up with. Or do they know more and are not telling us? Maybe you can find something I didn‘t.


Years Later, No Magic Bullet Against Alzheimer’s Disease

By GINA KOLATA
Published: August 28, 2010

BETHESDA, Md. — The scene was a kind of science court. On trial was the question “Can anything — running on a treadmill, eating more spinach, learning Arabic — prevent Alzheimer’s disease or delay its progression?”

Elise Schoux has been more careful to exercise regularly and eat right as preventive measures since her husband, Bill, learned last year that he has Alzheimer’s. She figures it can’t hurt. “I don’t know what the answers are,” Mrs. Schoux said.

The Vanishing Mind

Analyzing the Research

Articles in this series are examining the worldwide struggle to find answers about Alzheimer’s. To try to answer that question, the National Institutes of Health sponsored the court, appointing a jury of 15 medical scientists with no vested interests in Alzheimer’s research. They would hear the evidence and reach a judgment on what the data showed.

For a day and a half last spring, researchers presented their cases, describing studies and explaining what they had hoped to show. The jury also heard from scientists from Duke University who had been commissioned to look at the body of evidence — hundreds of research papers — and weigh it. And the jury members had read the papers themselves, preparing for this day.

The studies included research on nearly everything proposed to prevent the disease: exercise, mental stimulation, healthy diet, social engagement, nutritional supplements, anti-inflammatory drugs or those that lower cholesterol or blood pressure, even the idea that people who marry or stay trim might be saved from dementia. And they included research on traits that might hasten Alzheimer’s onset, like not having much of an education or being a loner.

It is an issue that has taken on intense importance because scientists recently reported compelling evidence that two types of tests, PET scans of Alzheimer’s plaque in the brain and tests of spinal fluid, can find signs of the disease years before people have symptoms. That gives rise to the question: What, if anything, can people do to prevent it?

But the jury’s verdict was depressing and distressing.

For more go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/health/research/29prevent.html