Monday, June 3, 2013

Prevent or Delay ALS

  High dietary intakes of foods high in carotenoids (beta-carotene and lutein) may help prevent or delay the onset of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Annuals of Neurology Jan. 29 2013

Sunday, June 2, 2013

PLIE Helps Patients with Alzheimer's

  PLIE (Preventing Loss of Independence Through Exercise) is a new program that combines elements of Eastern and Western traditional exercises and emphasizes focus on performing basic functional movements,encouraging social engagement and increasing bodily awareness. In the small group studied, patients would arrive at the exercise facility not remembering that they had been there but would start going through the movements of the routine. This fits with what we know about Alzheimer's : memory for events is impaired but procedural memory holds out and resists declination.
65th Annual AAN meeting San Diego March 2013
  In a related study, daily walking has been shown to stabilize Alzheimer's disease across one year.
Arch Gerontol Geriatr. 2013;56(1):96-103

Colicky Infants at Risk for Childhood Migraine

  Children that presented to the ER with migraine were 6x more likely to have a history of colic during infancy.
  It is theorized that colic may represent sensitization of the perivascular nerve terminals in the gut.
   Sadly, the brain-gut relation remains one of the least understood and least researched areas of medicine.
JAMA 2013;309(15):1607-1612

Gene Mutation Increases Risk of Alzheimer's

  ABCA7 genetic mutation in African Americans nearly doubles the risk of Alzheimer's disease. It is not associated with the disease in Europeans.
JAMA April 10, 2013