Dementia tests the depths of wedding vows: for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health. Larry Pushkin has seen it all New York Times

Men with elevated levels of “bad” cholesterol may increase their risk of hypertension
by 39 percent, “good” cholesterol appears to protect against high blood pressureHypertension affects more than 50 million Americans each year and is an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have found that there may be a link between high cholesterol levels and the development of hypertension in men. These findings will be published in an online edition of Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association on December 13, 2005 and in the January 1, 2006 print edition.

“There appears to be a significant association between increased cholesterol levels and the risk of developing hypertension in healthy, middle aged men,” says author, Howard Sesso, ScD, MPH, an epidemiologist in the Department of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “Our findings suggest we may have a new means of preventing hypertension, a devastating public heath issue in this country. If we can encourage men to improve their cholesterol levels, we may reduce their risk of developing high blood pressure later in life.”Department of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women%u2019s Hospital"—more: "

READ MORE: "In that quiet time between Christmas and New Year's, AstraZeneca (AZN)
announced a new licensing deal for an unproven Alzheimer's drug.
The deal was struck with Targacept, a privately held firm in Winston Salem, N.C., that owns a proprietary compound called TC-1734.
AstraZeneca will pay Targacept a $10 million upfront payment and begin studies of the compound. If AstraZeneca decides to proceed to midstage clinical research, it will pay Targacept an additional $20 million, plus $26 million in funding over the research term.
The milestone payments, research funding and royalties from future drug sales could reach $300 million."

A faster mile, bigger biceps, more stamina — all are proof that exercise hones the body. Less tangible, but no less important, is the effect on the mind.

Over the last decade, neuroscientists have been churning out an abundance of data pointing to changes in the brain following physical activity. Some researchers have even suggested that the type of exercise matters — as does the age at which it begins.

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"I would absolutely recommend people exercise for the mental benefits — especially the elderly," says Henriette Van Praag, a staff scientist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla. "People don't care about whether they're a size 4 or a size 6 as they get older. But they do care where their car keys are and whether they'll have the ability to play their card games and enjoy life."

Movement appears to enhance memory, learning, attention, decision-making and multi-tasking, among other mental functions. It also may slow or even reverse age-related decline.

The proof comes in two forms.....MORE - Los Angeles Times

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: The prevalence of individuals with cognitive decline is increasing since the number of elderly adults is growing considerably. The literature provides promising results on the beneficial effect of exercise and vitamin supplementation on cognitive function both in cognitively healthy as well as in the demented elderly. more

Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School Press Release:

Among Americans age 65 and older, antipsychotic medications are widely used for a variety of disorders including dementia, delirium, psychosis and agitation. Complicating this widespread use, in April 2005, the FDA issued a Public Health Advisory warning that newer or “atypical” antipsychotic medications nearly doubled the risk of death among elderly patients. The concern among researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) is that this “black box” warning may be driving physicians to prescribe “first generation” or conventional antipsychotic drugs such as Thorazine or Haldol, because these older drugs were not included in the FDA warning due to insufficient data on them.

In this important study, BWH researchers found that patients prescribed conventional antipsychotic drugs had a 37 percent higher risk of death in the short term than among those to whom atypical medications were prescribed. Researchers now caution physicians to carefully evaluate the safety of simply swapping new for old medications. These findings are published in the December 1, 2005 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.MORE

Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School Press Release:

Among Americans age 65 and older, antipsychotic medications are widely used for a variety of disorders including dementia, delirium, psychosis and agitation. Complicating this widespread use, in April 2005, the FDA issued a Public Health Advisory warning that newer or “atypical” antipsychotic medications nearly doubled the risk of death among elderly patients. The concern among researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) is that this “black box” warning may be driving physicians to prescribe “first generation” or conventional antipsychotic drugs such as Thorazine or Haldol, because these older drugs were not included in the FDA warning due to insufficient data on them.

In this important study, BWH researchers found that patients prescribed conventional antipsychotic drugs had a 37 percent higher risk of death in the short term than among those to whom atypical medications were prescribed. Researchers now caution physicians to carefully evaluate the safety of simply swapping new for old medications. These findings are published in the December 1, 2005 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.MORE

Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School Press Release:

Among Americans age 65 and older, antipsychotic medications are widely used for a variety of disorders including dementia, delirium, psychosis and agitation. Complicating this widespread use, in April 2005, the FDA issued a Public Health Advisory warning that newer or “atypical” antipsychotic medications nearly doubled the risk of death among elderly patients. The concern among researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) is that this “black box” warning may be driving physicians to prescribe “first generation” or conventional antipsychotic drugs such as Thorazine or Haldol, because these older drugs were not included in the FDA warning due to insufficient data on them.

In this important study, BWH researchers found that patients prescribed conventional antipsychotic drugs had a 37 percent higher risk of death in the short term than among those to whom atypical medications were prescribed. Researchers now caution physicians to carefully evaluate the safety of simply swapping new for old medications. These findings are published in the December 1, 2005 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.MORE

As with other chronic diseases of aging, early diagnosis and pharmacologic therapy may reduce the costs for enrollees with Alzheimer's diseaseMANAGED CARE

Reduced volume, or atrophy, in parts of the brain known as the amygdala and hippocampus may predict which cognitively healthy elderly people will develop dementia over a six-year period, according to a study.READ MORE

Brothers and sisters of patients with glaucoma have about a 20 percent chance of having developed the disease by the time they reach age 70, according to results of the Nottingham Family Glaucoma Screening Study.

"That's about five times the risk of the whole population at a similar age," ....MORE

The breakdown of myelin, a sheet of fat that insulates nerves and helps speed messages through the brain, appears to be a key contributor to the onset of Alzheimer's disease, a study published on Monday said.

Researchers at UCLA, who reported their findings in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry, used magnetic resonance imaging to assess the breakdown of myelin in 104 healthy adults between the ages of 55 and 75.MORE| Reuters.com