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Academy’s Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and Dementia Initiative Tackles Obstacles to AD Prevention
The New York Academy of Sciences' Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia Initiative(ADDI) today gathered leaders from industry, government, and academia for the first of a two-day workshop titled, "Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease — What Will It Take?"
The goal of the workshop is to develop a shared roadmap that will lead to additional drug development, which is currently hindered by extensive clinical trial processes. Very few drugs are currently approved to treat Alzheimer's disease and none effectively targets the underlying cause of the disease. Currently, more than 5 million people in the U.S. suffer from Alzheimer's disease, and that number is expected to grow to 14 million by 2050 if left unchecked.
During the first day of the conference, working groups focused on unique challenges related to disease prevention, with special attention to applying methods of adaptive clinical design that provide greater flexibility to redesign clinical trials at interim states so as to capitalize on positive early results. The aim of such an effort, which has been successfully applied to other diseases such as cancer, is to make drug development more efficient and cost-effective.
Full story of AD and Dementia prevention at The New York Academy of Sciences
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Treating chronic pain as a disease in its own right
A conference being held in Dublin this week will focus on chronic pain as ‘a disease in its own right’
Most people and even most doctors have trouble understanding pain as being anything other than a symptom of an illness. It was always understood that pain was a manifestation of an underlying condition and not a condition in itself.
That notion is slowly changing as doctors come to realize that chronic pain, mostly located in the lower back, is a medical condition itself. Other forms of chronic pain can be headaches lapsing into migraine, pains in the bones and pains in the stomach. It is a function of a poorly designed nervous system.
The classification of chronic pain as a disease in its own right is the theme of a conference taking place Thursday-Saturday in the Convention Centre Dublin. Entitled Chronic Pain – A disease in its own right and a major healthcare problem, it amounts to an attempt by specialists to raise awareness among the public about the status of chronic pain as a condition.
Full story of chronic pain as a disease at Irish Times
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Researchers Link Osteoarthritis to Common Chemicals
A team of U.S. scientists has found a link between osteoarthritis and chemicals with common industrial and consumer uses. They noted a strong association between one of them and research subjects who were women.
The study established a relationship between exposure to two common perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) and osteoarthritis, according to ScienceDaily. The researchers have published their work in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP) and represent two institutions: Yale University and Brigham and Women's Hospital, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School.
PFCs have had more than 200 industrial and consumer uses. The research team is the first to examine the relationships between two subtypes -- perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) -- and this type of arthritis in subjects that mirror the U.S. population.
Their report in EHP indicates that they also sought to determine whether exposure to either PFOA or PFOS was linked to particular associations with men and women. They concluded that higher concentrations of serum PFOA tracked to osteoarthritis in female subjects but not in males. They were able to associate PFOS with the disease in women only, though the effect did not appear significant.
Full story of chemicals linked to osteoarthritis at Yahoo News
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Diabetes Control Has Gotten Much Better
More than ever, Americans with diabetes are meeting three goals vital for control of their disease, a new study finds. And that could lower their risk for diabetes-related complications such as heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, blindness and amputations.
According to the study results, the number of Americans with diabetes who now meet or exceed goals for the three "ABCs" ― which stand for A1C,blood pressure and cholesterol ― increased from about 2 percent in 1988 to nearly 19 percent in 2010. A1C is a measure of blood glucose, or sugar, over two to three months.
Experts recommend that people with diabetes aim for an A1C of less than 7 percent; a blood pressure reading under 130/80 mmHg; and an LDL cholesterol reading of less than 100 mg/dL. (LDL is considered the "bad" cholesterol.)
Researchers from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed data gathered by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys from 1988 to 1994 and from 1999 to 2010. NHANES is a federal program of studies that regularly assesses the health and nutritional status of Americans.
Full story of the diabetes progress at Live Science
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Study Tests Unilateral Versus Bilateral Lumbar Fusion
For patients with degenerative lumbar diseases, the unilateral pedicle screw (PS) instrumented transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF) procedure results in shorter operative time, less blood loss, and reduced implant costs compared with a bilateral PS instrumented TLIF procedure, according to research published in the March issue of The Spine Journal.
Huaming Xue, M.D., of the Shanghai Yangpu District Central Hospital, and colleagues conducted a prospective, randomized trial involving 80 patients with degenerative lumbar diseases who underwent the TLIF procedure using either unilateral or bilateral PS fixation.
Full story of lumbar fusion at the Doctors Lounge
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