Michael J. Fox Urges Faster Research on Debilitating Disease Cures: Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Multiple Sclerosis

American TV and movie actor Michael J. Fox, who has been fighting Parkinson’s disease for 10 years, appealed for more rapid development of ways to treat his disease and other debilitating diseases by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

Nancy Reagan, widow of President Ronald Reagan, has made similar please to more rapidly deal with Alzheimer’s disease, which the late president ailed from.

My own Father had Parkinson’s and my Mother suffered some Alzheimer’s so I am an advocate clearly in the same camp with these celebrities.

I’ll add my personal plea to move with alacrity on Multiple Sclerosis (MS). My friend Ben deals with MS every day and we pray for a breakthrough in understanding and curing this disease.

Related:

Michael J. Fox urges speedier therapies for diseases like Parkinson’s

We Need to Address Mental Illness in the Aging

Alzheimer’s: Five Million Americans

http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20070411-084914-6679r.htm

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Funding For Multiple Sclerosis Research Needed (Commentary)

By Benjamin Allen and John E. Carey
The Washington Times
April 11, 2007

The 19th annual Multiple Sclerosis or MS Walk is scheduled to start April 14-15 from several sites in Washington D.C., Virginia and Maryland. This year’s event is sponsored by Booz Allen Hamilton, headquartered here in McLean, Va.

Last year more than 6,500 walkers and 400 volunteers participated in the April MS Walk in the Washington, D.C., area. The event raised more than $1.4 million for MS research and programs and services for metro area MS sufferers. Nationwide, 200,000 participants raised $53 million in MS Walks in 2006.

What is MS? It is a chronic progressive nervous disorder involving loss of myelin sheath around certain nerve fibers. Myelin is the white matter coating our nerves, enabling them to conduct impulses between the brain and other parts of the body. It consists of a layer of proteins packed between two layers of lipids. Myelin is produced by specialized cells in the central nervous system.

Every MS patient is affected differently, depending upon the area of demyelination. MS is thought to be an autoimmune disease in which one’s immune system is somehow tricked into attacking the myelin. The attacks occur within the central nervous system — either the spinal column or the brain. Think of MS as interrupting the commands from the brain to the body.

Multiple sclerosis means “multiple scars.” These scars are areas affected by the disease. MS often times strikes people in the prime of the lives. Many people living with MS were first diagnosed at the age of 30 or younger.

Today there is no cure for MS and the medical and research professionals continue to extensively research and discover more about how MS works.

The proportion of women living with multiple sclerosis jumped by 50 percent between the 1980s and the 1990s, while the number of men living with the disease remained constant, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Twice as many women as men are diagnosed with MS today.

The hallmark symptoms of MS include muscle weakness and stiffness, impaired balance and coordination, numbness and blurred vision. MS and other autoimmune diseases are characterized by the body’s misdirected attack on its own healthy tissue.

A friend with MS might tell you the bad news is he lost his balance and fell down the stairs. The good news, he might say, is you get a real adrenaline rush falling down the stairs and that makes you feel better for a short time.

There are an estimated 400,000 people living with MS in the United States today and the number is growing. The quality of life that can be provided varies greatly as each person with MS experiences different symptoms.

The MS Walks, which occur worldwide, help raise the funding needed to advance a better understanding of the disease and work to promote treatments.

The funding provides research centers such as National Institutes of Health and Johns Hopkins University, among many others, the money to help people with MS.

When you participate in the MS Walk, you directly assist those living with MS in your community and help to fuel cutting-edge research to eliminate the disease.

Together, we can make a difference — we can change the future by acting today.

[For questions, or to offer fund-raising assistance, contact the National MS Society at (202) 296-5363 or MSWalk@MSandYou.org. Web http://www.msandyou.org.

John E. Carey is former president of International Defense Consultants Inc. and a frequent contributor to The Washington Times. Benjamin Allen was diagnosed with MS while working for Booz Allen Hamilton.

Hormones may ward off dementia

By JEFF DONN, Associated Press

BOSTON – New research suggests that hormone therapy taken soon after menopause may help protect against the mental decline of dementia, even though it raises that risk in elderly women.

The study adds yet another frustrating twist to the back-and-forth findings about whether hormone-replacement therapy protects against diseases of aging. Though the accepted answer has been “no” in recent years, the latest evidence suggests that timing of treatments may be key, at least for heart attacks and now for dementia.

“When you give it may be very important,” said Dr. Sam Gandy, an Alzheimer’s disease expert at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

The new findings were released Wednesday in Boston at a meeting of the American Academy of Neurology. Experts cautioned that they are preliminary.

Lead researcher Dr. Victor Henderson, of Stanford University, agreed that it’s too soon to consider putting younger women back on hormones to forestall dementia.

For decades, women routinely took hormones to treat the hot flashes of menopause and to ward off ailments of aging. Then, in 2002, a milestone study showed higher risks of heart attack, stroke, and breast cancer with estrogen-progestin treatments. Estrogen-only pills were later also linked to stroke.

As a result, millions of women gave up the pills, and government experts advised women to use them only for severe menopause symptoms and to take the lowest dose for the shortest time possible.

But in recent weeks, mounting evidence has emerged that women who take such drugs closer to menopause may get more benefit or confront less risk than women who start taking them later. An analysis this month indicated the drugs do not raise the risk of heart attack for women ages 50-to-59, and they seem to survive longer with the drug.

The latest findings focused on 7,153 women in an offshoot study of the huge Women’s Health Initiative that tracked breast cancer and heart disease. The cognitive study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and by Wyeth, which sells hormone treatments.

Previous research showed that women who take hormones after age 65 experience a 75 percent increased risk of dementia over other women.

But this study found the opposite for women who took hormones before age 65: Dementia risk was reduced by nearly half.

Dementia developed in 22 of 2,228 women — or only 1 percent — who took hormones at the earlier time, but in 84 of 4,925 who did not — or 1.7 percent. The apparent protective effect was especially strong for Alzheimer’s disease, a common form of dementia.

“It’s an intriguing and biologically plausible finding … but it needs to be confirmed,” said Dr. JoAnn Manson, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who helped research the Women’s Health Initiative.

She said replacement hormones may preserve blood circulation in the brain.

Reversing Alzheimer’s memory loss may be possible

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Mental stimulation and drug treatment may help people with brain ailments such as Alzheimer’s disease regain seemingly lost memories, according to research published on Sunday.

Scientists used two methods to reverse memory loss in mice with a condition like Alzheimer’s — placing them in sort of a rodent Disneyland to stimulate their brains, and also using a type of drug that encourages growth of brain nerve cells.

Neuroscientist Li-Huei Tsai of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said such methods might yield similar benefits in people with Alzheimer’s disease or other types of dementia that rob them of their memory and ability to learn.

“We show, I believe, the first evidence that even if the brain suffered some very severe neurodegeneration and the individual exhibits very severe learning impairment and memory loss, there is still the possibility to improve learning ability and recover to a certain extent lost long-term memories,” Tsai said in a telephone interview.

Tsai said if apparently lost long-term memories could be retrieved, this suggested the memories had not been actually erased from the brain.

Instead, she and colleagues reported in the journal Nature, the memories probably remained in storage but could not be accessed or retrieved due to the brain damage.

The researchers used genetically engineered elderly mice in which they were able to activate a protein that triggered brain pathology very much like that of people with Alzheimer’s, with atrophy and loss of nerve cells.

MOUSE FUNHOUSE

Previous research has shown that regular mental stimulation such as reading or playing a musical instrument may reduce one’s risk for Alzheimer’s. And a stimulating environment also has been shown to improve learning in mice.

In one part of their study, the researchers took mice out of their usual bland cages and placed them in a sort of mouse playground loaded with an ever-changing assortment of colorful toys, treadmills and other mice.

The researchers previously had used a “fear-conditioning” test — placing mice in a chamber and delivering a mild electric shock to their feet — to establish an enduring memory.

Mice with Alzheimer’s-like brain damage put in the stimulating environment could remember that shock test far better than similar animals kept in standard cages. The playground mice also were better at learning new things than those kept in standard cages.

After exploring the biological mechanism behind the improvement in mice placed in the enriched environment, the researchers tested on the mice a class of drugs called histone deacetylase, or HDAC, inhibitors.

Memory and learning improved in the mice, similar to improvements caused by environmental stimulation, the researchers said. They said this indicated such drugs represent a potential way to treat people with conditions like Alzheimer’s.

Tsai said most current treatments for Alzheimer’s were intended to affect the disease’s early stages before profound memory loss occurred, but this research showed that even after major brain damage had occurred it was still possible to improve learning and memory.

Alzheimer’s: Five Million Americans

By Lauren Neergaard
AP Medical Writer

WASHINGTON – More than 5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease, a 10 percent increase since the last Alzheimer’s Association estimate five years ago — and a count that supports the long-forecast dementia epidemic as the population grays.

Age is the biggest risk factor, and the report to be released Tuesday shows the nation is on track for skyrocketing Alzheimer’s once the baby boomers start turning 65 in 2011. Already, one in eight people 65 and older have the mind-destroying illness, and nearly one in two people over 85.

Unless scientists discover a way to delay Alzheimer’s brain attack, some 7.7 million people are expected to have the disease by 2030, the report says. By 2050, that toll could reach 16 million.

Why? Ironically, in fighting heart disease, cancer and other diseases, “we’re keeping people alive so they can live long enough to get Alzheimer’s disease,” explains association vice president Steve McConnell.

Indeed, government figures released last year that show small drops in deaths from most of the nation’s leading killers between 2000 and 2004 — even as deaths attributed to Alzheimer’s disease increased 33 percent.

Yet the report also contains a startling finding: Between 200,000 and half a million people under age 65 have either early-onset Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia. Researchers have been hard-pressed to estimate of the number of young sufferers.

“I think this has been drastically underreported,” said Dr. Bill Thies, the Alzheimer’s Association’s medical director.

He cites as an example a 55-year-old having problems at work, such as behavior changes or missing deadlines, that may be early signs of brain impairment but that go unrecognized until they progress to full-scale memory problems.

The new report — based on federal population counts, not new disease research — is the first update of the Alzheimer’s toll since 2002, when it was estimated to afflict 4.5 million people. It comes as Congress is considering funding for research into Alzheimer’s and other diseases.

No one knows what causes Alzheimer’s creeping brain degeneration. It gradually robs sufferers of their memories and ability to care for themselves, eventually killing them. There is no known cure, and today’s drugs only temporarily alleviate symptoms.

Because it complicates treatment for every other illness, the new report shows Medicare spends nearly three times as much for dementia patients’ care as for the average beneficiary — $13,207 a year vs. $4,454.  Medicare’s spending on dementia-related care is projected to double to more than $189 million by 2015.

That doesn’t include the value of the unpaid round-the-clock care that families and friends provide the vast majority of Alzheimer’s patients who live at home — a tab the new report calculates at almost $83 billion_ or nursing home costs.

There are nine drugs in late-stage clinical trials, including a few that aim to slow Alzheimer’s worsening. If such drugs pan out, delaying Alzheimer’s symptoms by even a few years could cut by millions the coming decades’ predicted toll, the report notes.

Faith, Taking No Chances, Asian Faces, Sports, and Mom

By John E. Carey
February 23, 2007

Many readers know we are mourning the loss this week of our Bac (Uncle) Chi. You can read about Bac Chi by following the link at the bottom of this essay.

Bac Chi’s brother, my Bac Kaoi, asked me to pray for Chi so I have gone to Catholic Mass each day this week. Sometimes I think my faith is not deep enough and I follow the example of my Father.

On his deathbed, my Father received “communion” from a non- Catholic minister much to the shock of my sisters. He told them, “I am in no position to turn away any of God’s graces. And maybe that other church is the true church and ours isn’t. You can’t be too careful.”

I am a “you can’t be too careful” believer.

On the way home from church this morning I stopped in a drug store for a condolence card. The cash register clerk was an older Vietnamese gentleman. I asked if he was Vietnamese and he said, “Yes, how do you know?”

I said I was married into a Vietnamese family and I have gotten pretty good with Asian faces. I told him I lived in China one time and I have done business in a bunch of Asian countries. I told him one time in a restaurant my wife said the waitress was Latina and I said, “Heck no — Vietnamese.” I turned out to be right.

The clerk said, “You earn PhD in Asian faces.”

Then he tells me he was a major in the Army, he did 8 years in re-education after the war in Vietnam ended and his name is Khong Bui. He also said he is 76 years old and intends to work forever! I told him I had a Bac Thu Bui here and he said he didn’t think they were related.

Then my fried Don and I went to breakfast: well, coffee really.

Don has Alzheimer’s and I take him to Mass on these morning adventures.

The bad side of Alzheimer’s is that a lot of simple things tie Don in knots. A misunderstood letter can send him into a tailspin for days on end.

The good side of Don’s Alzheimer’s is that I can tell him the same jokes and stories over and over because he has very little working memory.

Occasionally Don comes out with a memory or story from long ago. Today he said he discovered that his Grandmother knew everything there was to know about the New York Yankees when she was 86 years old. She watched the team on TV or listened to games on the radio – every Yankees game – and she read all the newspaper reports.

Don’s Grandmother, at 86 years old, could spout off the batting averages of the players.

The story reminded me of my own Mom who also had Alzheimer’s.

When Mom was in her late seventies she was still only getting three TV channels: NBC, ABC and CBS. I told her all about cable but she resisted. She said another bill every month would just annoy her.

I told her I’d pay for the first year myself and she caved in.

Now, to fully appreciate the significance of this: my Mom was an orphan at an early age and in her youth she knew nothing about sports. But my Dad couldn’t live with that so he dragged her to Cleveland Indians games, Cleveland Browns games and Notre Dame football games. When they couldn’t go Dad set a radio in EVERY ROOM IN THE HOUSE to the broadcast of the game.

Mom became a sports fan. She was brainwashed into it!

So a few weeks after I had Mom’s cable hooked up for the first time I phoned her to see how it was going.

She didn’t have time for my call.

“John, I’ll call you back: Albert Belle is at the plate and he’s batting .297!”

My brother Bill also relished in Mom’s sports smarts. He used to call her during halftime of Notre Dame football games and I know he misses those calls every autumn now.

We all miss Mom. And Bac Chi.

Read about Bac Chi:
http://www.nowpublic.com/in_god_s_hands_now_the_passing_of_a_stateless_soldier

High rate of dementia found in men who had vasectomies

By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 13, 2007

Men may want to think twice about having a vasectomy.
    
A Northwestern University researcher announced yesterday there is a possible link between the procedure and two unusual forms of dementia that cause men to lose their ability to understand words and exhibit bizarre behaviors — including compulsive gambling and shoplifting. 
    
Symptoms of the two neurological diseases are distressing. Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) causes people to have trouble understanding speech and expressing themselves while frontotemporal dementia (FTD) prompts personality changes, lack of judgment and irrational actions.
    
One sufferer in the study, for example, was found by his sons on the floor of a restaurant men’s room doing push-ups.
    
Evidence linking vasectomies with PPA and FTD began on a small scale, but grew in scope.
    
Sandra Weintraub, principal investigator and a professor of psychology at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, took note when a patient said he began having problems with words and language right after his vasectomy at age 43.
    
It prompted her to investigate a possible correlation. During a review of nine men suffering from PPA, Ms. Weintraub discovered that eight of them had had vasectomies. A larger study of almost 50 men with PPA revealed that 40 percent had had vasectomies.
    
“It doesn’t mean having a vasectomy will give you this disease, but it may be a risk factor to increase your chance of getting it,” Ms. Weintraub said.
    
While she describes the findings as “preliminary,” a smaller study of 30 men with FTD found that 37 percent of them had undergone a vasectomy.
    
Ms. Weintraub theorizes a vasectomy may raise the risk of developing the conditions because the surgical procedure itself breaks down a protective barrier between the bloodstream and the testes; sperm continue to be produced but are disposed of in the body.
    
In 60 to 70 percent of men with vasectomies, the immune system mistakes sperm for foreign proteins and produces antibodies to counter these “invaders” once the barrier is gone. The antibodies, Ms. Weintraub says, may eventually enter and damage the brain.
    
In the United States, about a half million men annually undergo vasectomies, according to the National Institutes of Health — normally a 30-minute out-patient procedure. Several studies indicate that about 90 percent are satisfied with the results and free of pain, infection or psychological problems.
    
Still, between 6 percent and 11 percent later regret their decision after they remarry or their financial fortunes change, according to statistics from the Mayo Clinic. More than half of the men seeking fertility treatments were seeking a vasectomy reversal.
    
Ms. Weintraub is preparing to apply her theory in a national study.
    
“I don’t want to scare anyone away from getting a vasectomy,” she said. “It’s obviously a major birth-control connection. This is a correlational observation. We need to do more research.”
    
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Alzheimer’s Disease Study Finds Possible Genetic Clue

By John E. Carey
Peace and Freedom
January 15, 2007

Medical experts from the Center for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of Toronto, Columbia University Medical Center in New York, Boston University Medical Center, the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Jacksonville, Florida, and other research centers have completed a five year study on Alzheimer’s disease.

The doctors have concluded that a new gene they have identified apparently can raise the risk of developing the most common form of Alzheimer’s disease.

Alzheimer’s disease is an incurable brain disorder that is the top cause of dementia in the elderly.

Up to 4.5 million Americans are estimated to have Alzheimer’s, which gradually destroys memory and other mental abilities. No cure has been found.

The number of Americans with Alzheimer’s will greatly expand as “baby bomber” reach their elderly years, adding a huge financial burden to those paying for elderly care.

The most common variant of the disease, “late onset Alzheimer’s,” inflicts people over the age of 65. About 90 percent of all Alzheimer’s cases are “late onset.” The rarer early-onset is found less often in people from about age 30 to 65.

The doctors reported their findings in the journal Nature Genetics on Sunday.

The genetic indicator discovered in the research is being called SORL1.

People from four ethnic groups: Caribbean-Hispanics, North Europeans, black Americans and Israeli-Arabs were involved in the study. Doctors said they found certain variations of SORL1 more often in people with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease than in healthy people.

For several years, many scientists have believed that Alzheimer’s begins with the buildup in the brain of a gooey material called amyloid that form plaques in the brain. These plaques at first slow normal cognitive action and eventually disrupt it altogether. The material stems from a protein called amyloid precursor protein, or APP.

SORL1, doctors now believe, controls the distribution of APP inside nerve cells of the brain.

When working normally, the gene prevents APP from being degraded into a toxic byproduct called amyloid beta peptide. When SORL1 is deficient, it allows more of the bad amyloid beta peptide to accumulate, fostering amyloid plaques.

People who inherit certain variations of the SORL1 gene appear to have an increased risk of getting Alzheimer’s after age 60.

“Our study says that changes in the SORL1 gene might be a cause of the disease,” said Dr. Richard Mayeux at the Columbia University Medical Center.

Alzheimer’s is a complex disease that gradually destroys a person’s memory, ability to learn, reasoning, ability to make judgments, communication skills and the ability to carry out normal daily activities. Scientists have struggled to understand the biology of the disease and its root causes.

“It’s another clue to the way in which this disease comes about, another piece of the puzzle,” said Dr. Peter St. George-Hyslop, director of the Center for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of Toronto.

“Every time you get a piece of the puzzle and you can relate it to something else in the puzzle, you’re that much closer to knowing what the picture on the puzzle is,” he added.

Dr. St. George-Hyslop said it is premature to say what percentage of cases of late-onset Alzheimer’s disease can be attributed to SORL1. ApoE4, which also may be involved in the production of amyloid plaques, has been linked to about 20 percent of late-onset Alzheimer’s cases.

“This appears to be the fifth Alzheimer’s disease gene, and there are likely to be other important genetic variants that need to be identified before the entire picture is complete,” Dr. Richard Mayeux of Columbia University Medical Center in New York, also involved in the research, said in a statement.

If the findings of this study are confirmed by other scientists, it would be “a very substantial step forward in our understanding of the genetics of Alzheimer’s disease,” said Jonathan Haines of Vanderbilt University.

By shedding light on the biology of the illness, the discovery could help lead scientists to find new treatments, he and other experts said.

Sam Gandy, a spokesman for the Chicago-based Alzheimer’s Association said if the results of this study are confirmed it may be possible to one day develop a blood test to identify people who are “at risk” for late onset Alzheimer’s.

But the test would just offer a risk profile and couldn’t predict who would actually get the disease, he says.

More and more doctors and researchers are now convinced that late-onset Alzheimer’s is not triggered by a single gene and is probably influenced by many factors, including lifestyle and diet, says Gandy, who is the director of the Farber Institute for Neurosciences at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

Some sociologists believe that the full impact of Alzheimer’s disease is felt more in America and other western nations where life expectancy is longer and the elderly are more likely to live alone.

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World Alzheimer’s Awareness Day

By John E. Carey
The Washington Times
September 20, 2006

Tomorrow, September 21, is World’s Alzheimer’s Day. This is a fitting anniversary for me as it coincides with my Mom’s birthday.

Tomorrow is the day that Alzheimer associations around the world set aside to concentrate their efforts on raising awareness about dementia. There are an estimated 24 million people around the world who currently have dementia.

Alzheimer’s is one of the most costly maladies draining the reserves of insurance companies and family savings. And because the medical community is now able to help us live longer lives, the number of Alzheimer’s sufferers is increasing at an alarming rate.

In June 1999, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) joined together as co-chairs of the Bipartisan Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer’s Disease, a task force that continues to provide an immeasurable degree of leadership.

Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) head the effort in the Senate. Both are active, vigorous and conscientious advocates.

Congressional committees responsible for funding Alzheimer’s research and treatment projects voted to limit or decrease most projects in the budget now under consideration on Capitol Hill.

Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive brain disorder that gradually destroys a person’s memory and ability to learn, reason, make judgments, communicate and carry out daily activities. As Alzheimer’s progresses, individuals may also experience changes in personality and behavior, such as anxiety, suspiciousness or agitation, as well as delusions or hallucinations.

Because Alzheimer’s is a disease, a malfunction if you will, in the brain, patients and their families often experience difficulty in properly diagnosing the disease and getting treatment.

While doctors often rely heavily on the patient’s complaints to diagnose other diseases, a patient with Alzheimer’s may be unable or reluctant to describe his or her own confusion and distress.

Add to that, the patient may be reclusive, untrusting and/or overly proud. The patient may suffer through long days of confusion and misinterpretation, only to rally in front of the doctor and hide any hint of disability.

My friend Ron may be the classic example of Alzheimer’s disease running amuck in a sufferer both confused and no longer able to routinely make rational decisions others take for granted.

He is not only unable to make the decisions; he agonizes over simple decisions for days or weeks at a time.
And Alzheimer’s disease sufferers can be dangerous, in extreme cases, to themselves and others. Ron has had three car accidents in recent memory. His insurance policy was revoked.

But, unable to properly self-diagnose and afraid a doctor might recommend he stop driving, Ron, like untold numbers of others, retains his license, continues to drive, and found new though more expensive insurance coverage.

We experienced the agony of Alzheimer’s in our own family. My mother progressed over the course of several years from exhibiting slightly odd behavior to the stage we all most fear. She became almost a totally different person. She became both difficult to care for and hard to love.

She eventually needed full time nursing home care: a costly proposition even for the well heeled and adequately insured.

Fortunately there is lots of help available. Help groups, seminars and treatment opportunities abound. In my county, for example, people over the age of 65 can ride a taxi almost anywhere for $1.00 so nobody who feels unsafe behind the wheel needs to drive.

What are the costs of a progressive brain disease on an aging society?At the 10th International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders (ICAD), in Madrid during July, 2006, Dr. Anders Wimo, M.D. Ph.D., of the Stockholm Gerontology Research Center and Aging Research Center at Karolinska Instituet, Sweden, said the worldwide costs of dementia care (combined direct and informal costs) is now in the neighborhood $248 billion U.S. Dollars annually.

But this overlooks the fact that many suffer the ill effects of the disease and still receive no care and that our aging population is growing at a breathtaking rate.

“These startling cost estimates for Alzheimer’s care clearly illustrate the great challenges faced by both families and our national healthcare systems as the number of people with Alzheimer’s continues to grow,” said William Thies, Ph.D., Alzheimer’s Association vice president of Medical and Scientific Relations.

“Increasing the funding for Alzheimer’s research into early detection, better treatment and prevention is critical to curbing this impending world health disaster. We can fund research now or wait for Alzheimer’s to overwhelm the health systems in the U.S. and throughout the world.”

According to the Department of Health and Human Services Administration on Aging, the older population–persons 65 years or older–numbered 36.3 million in 2004 (the latest year for which data is available). They represented 12.4% of the U.S. population, about one in every eight Americans. By 2030, there will be about 71.5 million older persons, more than twice their number in 2000. People 65+ represented 12.4% of the population in the year 2000 but are expected to grow to be 20% of the population by 2030.

According to the U.S. Alzheimer’s Association, Medicare costs for people with Alzheimer’s will be over $1 trillion by 2050 and Medicaid costs for nursing home care alone will be about $118 billion.

Nobody can say for sure how many people among us will have Alzheimer’s in the future but some experts say we will have 16 million or more Alzheimer’s sufferers in America by 2050.

The treatment costs for these people will certainly be staggering.

“All too often, seniors are unable to access adequate mental health care in their communities, even when they have access to other health care services in places like local community centers,” said Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) who works closely in the Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer’s Disease on Capitol Hill with Senator Clinton and others.

Add to this health care crisis an often overlooked segment of the population that Senator Clinton often discusses: patients and sufferers from Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease. These are younger sufferers; people sometimes as young as fifty years of age.

“Alzheimer’s doesn’t just affect the elderly,” Senator Clinton said. “When Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias unexpectedly strike younger individuals, they face daunting challenges in addition to the disease itself, like difficulty obtaining a diagnosis, early retirement and the loss of jobs and income.”

Congressional funding for Alzheimer’s education, research and related programs such as 24/7 Call Centers, the National Family Caregiver Support Program, and other efforts, is never easily secured.

Congressional committees with oversight and funding authority for Alzheimer’s projects have already recommended funding cuts to several Alzheimer’s programs in this budget cycle and the House and Senate are not expected to vote on Alzheimer’s projects until after the November elections.

“Although we have made progress in the awareness, diagnosis, and treatment of Alzheimer’s over the past 15 years… we must do more,” Senator Clinton said. “We must continue to make this disease a national priority. This means directing more resources to learn how to identify early onset dementia and stop its progression.”

“I am hopeful that together we can combat this disease and do all we can to bring hope, help and an eventual cure to the millions of Americans with Alzheimer’s,” Senator Clinton said.

We Need to Address Mental Illness in the Aging

Address Mental Illness in the Aging

By John E. Carey
September 1, 2006
The Washington Times

What are the costs of a progressive brain disease on an aging society?

Experts believe one hundred billion dollars per year goes to treating about 4.5 million American patients with Alzheimer’s now. But this overlooks the fact that many suffer the ill effects of the disease but receive no care and that our aging population is growing at a breathtaking rate.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services Administration on Aging, the older population–persons 65 years or older–numbered 36.3 million in 2004 (the latest year for which data is available). They represented 12.4% of the U.S. population, about one in every eight Americans. By 2030, there will be about 71.5 million older persons, more than twice their number in 2000. People 65+ represented 12.4% of the population in the year 2000 but are expected to grow to be 20% of the population by 2030.

Nobody can say for sure how many people among us will have Alzheimer’s in the future but some experts say we will have 16 million or more Alzheimer’s sufferers in America by 2050. The treatment costs for these people could be somewhere between 350 and 500 billion dollars annually.

But a lot of people are never properly diagnosed or receive any treatment for Alzheimer’s. And what do we know about the untreated? I’ll give you an example. My friend Dave lives alone and has no family to care for him. He is not yet eighty. He drives. He had three automobile accidents in the last nine months. Usually we go to lunch and a prayer service once a week. I have become accustomed to the fact that, after leaving his apartment he always has to return to make sure he turned off the stove, flushed the toilet, and locked the door.

This is one of many symptoms; others are more bizarre. He trusts no one and won’t or can’t discuss his illness but I know what it is. We are seeking some help from county social services.

My own Mother died last year after a long bout with Alzheimer’s. I “chewed” her last cookie for her, moving her jaw with my own hands. So I am not an unbiased participant in the debate. But neither are Nancy Reagan and scores of others who have been personally moved by the devastation of mental disorders and diseases, especially Alzheimer’s. We consider Michael J. Fox’s outreach on Parkinson’s disease an interrelated effort to Alzheimer’s disease research. The brain is a tricky place.

Alzheimer’s is terrifying, dangerous to the victim and sometimes even people near by.

Where does federal research money for Alzheimer’s go?

On July 21, 2006, the 10th International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders, ICAD for short, ended in Spain. The conference attracted the largest assembly of Alzheimer’s experts ever—just above 5,000 from 50 countries.

Many of the seminars discussed an array of new and different early detection and diagnostic efforts. Others dealt with new brain imaging and MRI methods to understand the disease’s progression.

And there are a wealth of promising treatments being evaluated in laboratories. For example, a new drug reverses learning and memory deficits in mice. The drug, called AF267B, reduces the brain-clogging buildup of protein – one of the believed causes of the symptoms many of us have seen, experienced or heard about.

Doctors and researchers are challenged to develop an effective treatment that can be implemented before symptoms of Alzheimer’s dementia appear. Researchers now believe the disease starts to destroy neurons in the brain 10 to 20 years before anyone notices any Alzheimer’s symptoms. That means all you youngsters and you legislators, before you cut funding for Alzheimer’s research, need to be evaluated before you start acting loony. Or loonier.

With Alzheimer’s Disease looming as one of the costliest health problems ever, the Bush administration cut funding for the National Institutes of Health’s Alzheimer’s research from $656 million in 2005 to an estimated $652 million this year to a recommended $645 million in 2007. Congress has done nothing to reduce the downward slide.

Among those arguing for more money is Steve McConnell, vice president of advocacy and public policy at the Alzheimer’s Association. “It’s the disease of the century and could bankrupt our society if we don’t find a way to stop it,” he said. “There’s been enormous progress in disease-modifying treatments, but with the funding cut we slow the day we get an intervention.”

The issue is when and how our nation will deal with a rapidly growing aging population, and address the illnesses.

But in the near term, the Congress needs to adequately fund federal research efforts for Alzheimer’s.

John E. Carey writes frequently for The Washington Times.