On this week's Mayo Clinic Radio program, Dr. Clifford Jack Jr., a radiologist at Mayo Clinic, will explain the importance of the new Alzheimer's framework for improving research. Also on the program, Vivien Williams, medical reporter with the Mayo Clinic News Network, will discuss "Health + Happiness With Mayo Clinic," the weekly program she co-hosts on NBC. And Dr. Thomas Brott, a neurologist at Mayo Clinic, will look back the advances he's seen in his 40 years of treating stroke.

To hear the program, find an affiliate in your area.

Use the hashtag #MayoClinicRadio, and tweet your questions.

Mayo Clinic Radio is on iHeartRadio.

Access archived shows or subscribe to the podcast.

Mayo Clinic Radio produces a weekly one-hour radio program highlighting health and medical information from Mayo Clinic.

The post Mayo Clinic Radio: Redefining Alzheimer’s disease appeared first on Mayo Clinic News Network.

On this week's Mayo Clinic Radio program, Dr. Clifford Jack Jr., a radiologist at Mayo Clinic, will explain the importance of the new Alzheimer's framework for improving research. Also on the program, Vivien Williams, medical reporter with the Mayo Clinic News Network, will discuss "Health + Happiness With Mayo Clinic," the weekly program she co-hosts on NBC. And Dr. Thomas Brott, a neurologist at Mayo Clinic, will look back the advances he's seen in his 40 years of treating stroke.

To hear the program, find an affiliate in your area.

Miss the show?  here's your Mayo Clinic Radio podcast.

Use the hashtag #MayoClinicRadio, and tweet your questions.

Mayo Clinic Radio is on iHeartRadio.

Access archived shows or subscribe to the podcast.

Mayo Clinic Radio produces a weekly one-hour radio program highlighting health and medical information from Mayo Clinic.

The post Mayo Clinic Radio: Redefining Alzheimer’s disease / ‘Health + Happiness With Mayo Clinic’ / 40 years of stroke treatment appeared first on Mayo Clinic News Network.

The new definition is part of a new framework for researching Alzheimer's disease that the Alzheimer's Association and the National Institute on Aging developed and released.

Watch: New definition of Alzheimer's changes how disease is researched.

Journalists: Broadcast-quality video pkg (2:55) is in the downloads. Read the script.

"Alzheimer's disease is one cause of dementia," Dr. Clifford Jack Jr., a Mayo Clinic radiologist and Alzheimer's researcher, says. "It's the most common cause, but it's certainly not the only cause. And that has been a source of major confusion."

Dr. Jack helped lead a team of scientists with the Alzheimer's Association and the National Institute on Aging release the new Alzheimer's research framework.

Currently, Alzheimer's is diagnosed by evaluating symptoms and cognitive behavior associated with the disease. But, Dr. Jack says, that can be misleading for research.

So, in the new research framework, Alzheimer's disease is not diagnosed based on symptoms. Instead, it is diagnosed by its neuropathology, referred to as plaques and tangles. This can be done at autopsy or using biomarkers when a person is still living. That means through cerebral spinal fluid or through brain imaging.

Dr. Jack says the change is significant.

"What we're saying is that symptoms are a consequence of the disease," he says. "They're not the definition of the disease. People can have the pathology in the brain and be symptom-free. They still have the disease even though they have no symptoms. If they have the pathology, they have the diseases. It's controversial in some circles because, historically, the presence of symptoms was the definition. Now we're saying [that's] no longer so."

Dr. Jack says changing the definition allows research to better target patients so clinical trials will be more effective.

He also says this change is significant because it can allow researchers to diagnose Alzheimer's disease before a patient has symptoms. This will allow scientists to develop treatments that stop Alzheimer's before symptoms develop, improving the quality of life for patients.

Dr. Jack says a good way to think of the shift is comparing it to how health care providers treat heart disease.

"The best way to treat cardiovascular disease is by giving an asymptomatic person statins, you know, for 20, 30 years, as opposed to waiting until that person has a stroke or heart attack, and then trying to treat [that]," he says. "So that's the ... and it's only by defining the disease in this way, biologically, that you can identify treatments that prevent the onset of symptoms."

Dr. Jack says he and the other scientists releasing the new framework hope it will create a common language for researchers to use in the short term.

"The long term is that these biomarkers – classifying people in this way, defining Alzheimer's disease in this way, using biomarkers to determine who actually gets into clinical trials – that will lead to more rapid development and identification of treatments," he says. "And, so, the long term is that this biomarker-based definition will lead more rapidly to effective treatments."

Review the full release from the Alzheimer's Association and National Institute on Aging.

The post New definition of Alzheimer’s changes how disease is researched appeared first on Mayo Clinic News Network.

 “If translatable to humans — which makes sense as we were using human cells in many of the tests – this type of therapy could keep the effects of aging at bay and significantly extend the healthspan of patients,” says James Kirkland, M.D., Ph.D., head of the Mayo Clinic Kogod Center on Aging and senior author of the study.

 The drugs — called senolytics — selectively kill senescent cells without harming nearby cells and tissue, to reduce heart and vascular problems, muscle weakness, osteoporosis, and neurological problems. Senescent cells are cells that appear with aging and at sites of many age-related diseases. They produce factors that can damage the cells and tissues around them and at a distance, amplifying their effects. In many examples, the drugs caused significant and visible reduction of multiple conditions after just one dose – and remained therapeutic for up to seven months. The researchers say that this long lasting effect is consistent with a change in cellular or tissue composition.

MEDIA CONTACT: Bob Nellis, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, Email: newsbureau@mayo.edu

The two drugs — dasatanib and quercetin — were the most successful of the 46 drugs tested in clearing senescent cells and while partially effective individually, when combined were significantly more effective in visibly reversing signs of aging in mice.

“While far too early to predict a clinical relevance, this work demonstrates a novel and exciting way to address multiple morbidities affecting the elderly, at least in a mouse model of accelerated aging,” said Dr. Felipe Sierra, director of the National Institute on Aging’s Division of Aging Biology. “It will be interesting to see further senolytics developed and tested in normal mice and other animal models.”

More studies are planned and there is no time frame on when the drugs might be used on humans. Dr. Kirkland cautions against any speculation on clinical applications. Both drugs are in use in humans for other purposes, however they would still have to go through clinical trials for this new and unique type of aging therapy.

The research was supported by multiple grants from the National Institutes of Health, and by the Glenn, Ted Nash Long Life, and Noaber Foundations.

Others on the research team include co-first authors Yi Zhu, Ph.D. and Tamara Tchkonia, Ph.D., Husheng Ding, Nino Giorgade, Allyson Palmer, Steven O’Hara, Nicholas LaRusso, Jordan Miller, Carolyn Roos, Grace Verzosa, Nathan LeBrasseur, Joshua Farr, Sundeep Khosla, and Michael Stout, of Mayo Clinic; Adam Gower, Marc Lenburg of Boston University; Yuji Ikeno and Gene Hubbard, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and Audie Murphy VA Hospital, San Antonio; Jonathan Wren, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation; and Sara McGowan, Heike Furhmann-Stroissnigg, Aditi Gurkar, Jing Zhao, Debora Colangelo, Akaitz Dorronsoro, Yuan Yuan Ling, Amira Barghouthy, Diana Navarro, Tokio Sano, Paul Robbins and Laura Niedernhofer, of the Scripps Research Institute in Florida.

Mayo Clinic and Dr. Kirkland have a financial interest in the technology referenced in this news release.

The post Mayo Clinic and Collaborators Find New Class of Drugs that Reduces Aging in Mice appeared first on Mayo Clinic News Network.

For the study, 862 people with thinking problems and 1,292 with no thinking problems between the ages of 70 and 89 were followed for nearly six years. Over the course of the study, 331 of the group with MCI and 224 of the group without MCI died. Those who had either type of MCI had an 80 percent higher death rate during the study than those without MCI.  People with MCI with no memory loss had more than twice the death rate during the study than those without MCI, while people with MCI with memory loss had a 68 percent higher death rate during the study than those without MCI.

“Currently there is little information about death and the types of memory loss that affect many millions of Americans,” said study author Maria Vassilaki, M.D., Ph.D., neurologist with Mayo Clinic. “Exploring how memory may or may not be linked with the length of a person’s life has tremendous significance as the population age.”

MCI is often a precursor to Alzheimer’s disease. There are two main types of MCI. In one type, the most noticeable symptom is memory loss. In people with the other type of MCI, language, attention, decision-making and other abilities are declining, but memory is still intact.

The study was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging and Rochester Epidemiology Project.

###

About Mayo Clinic
Recognizing 150 years of serving humanity in 2014, Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit worldwide leader in medical care, research and education for people from all walks of life. For more information, visit 150years.mayoclinic.org, MayoClinic.org or https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/.

MEDIA CONTACT: Duska Anastasijevic, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, Email: newsbureau@mayo.edu

The post People with Mild Cognitive Impairment May Die at Higher Rate Than People Without Condition appeared first on Mayo Clinic News Network.

“Potentially, if we can prevent or control diabetes and high blood pressure in middle age, we can prevent or delay the brain damage that occurs decades later and leads to memory and thinking problems and dementia,” says study author and Mayo Clinic epidemiologist Rosebud Roberts M.B., Ch.B.

For the study, the thinking and memory skills of 1,437 people with an average age of 80 were evaluated. The participants had either no thinking or memory problems or mild memory and thinking problems called mild cognitive impairment. They then had brain scans to look for markers of brain damage that can be a precursor to dementia. Participants’ medical records were reviewed to determine whether they had been diagnosed with diabetes or high blood pressure in middle age or later.

For diabetes, 72 people developed it in middle age, 142 in old age and 1,192 did not have diabetes. For high blood pressure, 449 people developed it in middle age, 448 in old age and 369 did not have it.

Compared to people who did not have diabetes, people who developed diabetes in middle age had a total brain volume average of 2.9 percent smaller. In the hippocampus area of the brain, the volume was 4 percent smaller. They also were twice as likely to have thinking and memory problems.

Compared to people who did not have high blood pressure, people who developed high blood pressure in middle age were twice as likely to have areas of brain damage.

“People who developed diabetes even in old age also were more likely to have areas of brain damage. Conversely, there were not many effects from high blood pressure that developed in old age,” Roberts says. “Overall, our findings suggest that the effects of these diseases on the brain take decades to develop and show up as brain damage and lead to symptoms that affect their memory and other thinking skills. In particular, diabetes has adverse effects regardless of the age at which diabetes develops.”

The study was supported by the National Institute on Aging, Robert H. and Clarice Smith and Abigail Van Buren Alzheimer’s Disease Research Program, Rochester Epidemiology Project, National Institutes of Health, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and European Union Regional Development Fund.

###

About Mayo Clinic
Recognizing 150 years of serving humanity in 2014, Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit worldwide leader in medical care, research and education for people from all walks of life. For more information, visit 150years.mayoclinic.org, www.mayoclinic.org and newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Nick Hanson, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, newsbureau@mayo.edu

The post Diabetes in Middle Age May Lead to Brain Cell Loss Later in Life appeared first on Mayo Clinic News Network.

MULTIMEDIA ALERT: Video and audio of Clifford Jack, Jr., M.D., will be available for download on the Mayo Clinic News Network.

"Our study suggests that plaques in the brain that are linked to a decline in memory and thinking abilities, called beta amyloid, take about 15 years to build up and then plateau," says lead author Clifford Jack, Jr., M.D., a Mayo Clinic radiologist, and the Alexander Family Professor of Alzheimer's Disease Research at Mayo Clinic.

For the study, 260 people ages 70 to 92 had two or more brain scans over an average of 1.3 years to measure plaque buildup in their brains. Of the participants, 22 percent had impaired thinking abilities or memory at the start of the study.

The study found that the rate of buildup accelerates initially, then slows before plateauing at high levels. The rate of plaque accumulation was highest in those with mid-range levels at the start of the study. Those with low levels or high levels of the plaques as the study began had lower rates of plaque buildup.

The study also found that the rate of buildup of plaques was more closely tied to the total amount of amyloid plaques in the brain than other risk factors, such as the level of cognitive impairment, age and the presence of the APOE gene, a gene linked to Alzheimer's disease.

"Our results suggest that there is a long treatment window where medications may be able to help slow buildup of the amyloid plaques that are linked to cognitive decline," Dr. Jack says. "On the
other hand, trying to treat the plaque buildup after the amyloid plaque load has plateaued may not do much good."

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging (grant numbers R01 AG011378 and RO1 AG041851) and General Electric Corporation.

The post Mayo Clinic Researchers Identify Possible Treatment Window for Memory Problems appeared first on Mayo Clinic News Network.