Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Where Pharma Has Failed To Offer Hope For Alzheimer's Treatment, Medical Devices Have Shown Promise
Los Angeles Times: Light And Sound Stimulus Therapy Generates A Buzz In Alzheimer’s Research World
The often-discouraging search for ways to prevent or treat Alzheimer’s disease may have flickered to life this week with a bright new idea — and a buzzy new soundtrack as well. In experiments conducted on mice, scientists used light and sound to orchestrate a series of episodes that were marked by an unusual state of electronic synchrony inside the animals’ brains. Prompted by a gently flickering light and a pulsating buzz — both timed to fire 40 times per second — their brains began to hum to the same frequency. The results, published this week in the journal Cell, are already yielding some powerful insights about what may go wrong in Alzheimer’s disease, and how that process might be halted or reversed. (Healy, 3/15)
In other news on dementia and aging —
NPR: Diagnosis Of Dementias Other Than Alzheimer's Can Affect Care
In the U.S., older people with dementia are usually told they have Alzheimer's disease.But a range of other brain diseases can also impair thinking, and memory and judgment, according to scientists attending a summit on dementias held Thursday and Friday at the National Institutes of Health. These include strokes, a form of Parkinson's disease, and a disease that damages brain areas that regulate emotion and behavior. (Hamilton, 3/18)
San Francisco Chronicle: UCSF Study Suggests Novel Treatment For Fending Off Chronic Age-Related Diseases: Moisturizer
University researchers in tandem with the San Francisco Veterans Administration (VA) Health Care System now have reason to believe that inflammation of the skin may further the development of multiple chronic diseases, and one way to help fix the issue is by applying reparative moisturizer. The study's authors write that as skin begins to lose moisture and deteriorate around age 50, it begins to experience a breakdown of the "permeability barrier." (Pereira, 3/15)
