Latest news with #Alzheimer
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
New Study Finds That A Blood Test For Diabetes Might Actually Predict Alzheimer's Progression
A new study suggests a simple blood test could tell who is at higher risk for rapid cognitive decline with Alzheimer's. The study found that people with higher insulin resistance were up to four times more likely to have rapid cognitive decline. Here's what to know about the test and how to get one. Historically, it has been quite difficult for doctors to predict how fast patients will experience cognitive decline with Alzheimer's disease, especially since the neurodegenerative disease impacts people differently based on a slew of factors. But new research has discovered that a specific blood test may help doctors get more answers, which could, in theory, help them respond more quickly with appropriate treatment and providing patients with more information. (But of course, experts first need to gather more data and perform further studies on the test.) The test measures insulin resistance, a condition where the body's cells don't respond properly to insulin, a hormone that helps escort blood sugar into cells for energy. The latest study finds a link between insulin resistance and Alzheimer's disease progression, helping doctors and patients glean more information about what may be in store. Here's what the study found, plus what neurologists want you to know. Meet the experts: Clifford Segil, DO, is a neurologist at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, CA; Amit Sachdev, MD, MS, is the medical director in the Department of Neurology at Michigan State University. The study, which was presented at the European Academy of Neurology Congress 2025, analyzed health records of 315 people without diabetes who had cognitive deficits. Of those, 200 had confirmed cases of Alzheimer's disease. All of the patients had their insulin resistance checked using something called the Triglyceride-Glucose (TyG) index, a way to check insulin resistance, based on fasting triglyceride (a type of fat in the blood) and blood sugar levels, at the start of the study and three years later. The researchers discovered that patients in the mild cognitive impairment group with higher TyG levels had their cognitive health deteriorate a lot faster than those who were lower on the TyG index. Ultimately, the researchers found that people with higher TyG levels were up to four times more likely to have rapid cognitive decline compared to those who were lower on the scale. For starters, this type of blood test isn't actually new. We're just discovering new ways it can be used. The TyG index is already used to look for insulin resistance in people, so technically, you could get this test now if your doctor thought that it was medically appropriate. Just know that it's usually used in the context of diabetes or when your doctor suspects you might have diabetes. The test appears to be pretty accurate in predicting rapid mental decline. The researchers found that people with high TyG ended up losing more than 2.5 points on the Mini Mental State Examination per year, which is a standardized test used to look at cognitive function in older adults. In Alzheimer's disease, insulin resistance is thought to interfere with how the brain uses glucose (blood sugar). It's also believed to promote the build-up of amyloid, or proteins deposits in the brain that are linked with Alzheimer's disease. Additionally, insulin resistance can disrupt the blood-brain barrier and fuel inflammation in the brain. All of these are linked with neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease. 'Insulin resistance often reflects features of overall health," says Amit Sachdev, MD, MS, medical director in the Department of Neurology at Michigan State University, pointing out that a major contributor to insulin resistance is higher bodyweight. 'If the overall health of the body is not optimal, then the brain will not be well supported and can be less resilient.' But the link between insulin resistance and Alzheimer's disease is still being explored, says Clifford Segil, DO, a neurologist at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, CA. So, while it's clear that it seems to play some role, it's hard to tell what it's specifically doing as it relates to brain health. Your doctor can order one of these tests for you. However, neurologists say there are better options right now if you're concerned about Alzheimer's disease development and are looking for answers. 'Some tests that are more specific for Alzheimer's are serum amyloid and tau levels,' Dr. Sachdev sys. 'Tests that help predict risk for the anti-amyloid therapies used in Alzheimer's is the APO-E genotype. These studies are useful today in understand risk of dementia, type of dementia, and risk of treatment.' Dr. Segil says that doctors are 'extremely cautious' about using blood tests like TyG to determine if someone is at risk for developing dementia in the first place. 'There remains an extremely high number of false positive results in patients receiving various blood tests being marketed to determine if you are at risk for getting dementia,' he says. However, this specific study is exploring the test to see how quickly someone who already has cognitive decline will progress—and that usage is still being explored. All of this doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't get a TyG test. Just know that your doctor is more likely to use it while checking you for early signs of diabetes versus Alzheimer's disease right now. 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Daily Mirror
3 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Three network blackout meant man 'unable to dial 999' when mum disappeared
A Three network outage caused chaos across the UK with one man unable to get in touch with his mum after seeing an ambulance outside her house via a video camera A man who saw an ambulance outside his mum's house through his video camera was unable to call her or the emergency services after a mass network outage. David Henry was alerted to a possible incident at his mum's home in Fife when an alert went off on his phone. When he clicked onto the camera app, he saw an ambulance outside her address. David, a freelance TV producer, feared the worst as his elderly mother has Alzheimer's, and immediately tried to call her landline and also spoke to a cyclist through the video camera who his mum had flagged down to call an ambulance. However, due to an issue with Three's mobile network causing chaos a network outage across the UK on Wednesday, June 25, none of David's calls would connect as he got in his car and drove 30 miles from Edinburgh to Methill. When he arrived, the ambulance had just left his mum's house. David frantically tried to call 999 to find out what had happened and where his mum had been taken, but he claims calls to the emergency services also would not connect. At the same time, the paramedics were also trying to get through to David to find out details of his mum's condition and medication. David eventually drove to Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy where he assumed she had been taken. After waiting for two hours, he was still in the dark about where his mum was or if she was hurt. After being approached for comment a spokesperson for Three apologised the network was not accessible. It's understood Three was also investigating why none of David's calls to the emergency services were connected through an alternative network. Speaking to EdinburghLive David said: "She flagged someone down to call an ambulance which visited her home. I have a camera which sends me alerts to my phone as I'm her carer and keep an eye on things. "I saw that and tried to phone her. I couldn't make any calls and thought it was engaged. I eventually spoke to a man through the camera itself and he said the phone is back on the hook can you try again. "I tried again and it still wouldn't work so I dropped everything and jumped in the car. By the time I got there I just missed the ambulance so I went to A&E assuming she had been taken there but there was no sign of her. "I was waiting for two hours with no idea where she was or what happened. Eventually they phoned the ambulance service from A&E for me and discovered they had dropped her off at a day care place. "I had an extremely stressful day thanks to this. I tried to dial 999 at her house to find out where she was and I couldn't even do that. "That is a very serious service error. I got all the messages and missed calls through this morning (Thursday). Indeed the ambulance did try phone me to discuss her medical needs." David raised serious concerns about those who were in need of an ambulance on Wednesday and were unable to get through. A spokesperson for Ofcom confirmed it was in contact with Three to establish the scale and cause of the problem. David continued: "I went in to A&E and they just said she wasn't on the system so I was there two hours getting more and more wound up. I was thinking 'well where could she be?' "It was a terrible two hours. Of course mum doesn't remember anything about it and thankfully she wasn't injured. "999 is always meant to work, whether you've got credit on your phone or not. This was a complete failure and there is no excuse for it. These systems are meant to be backed up. "I phoned my friend as I was jumping in the car and that worked on WhatsApp. She then told me it's all over the news there is a mass outage. This is a very serious licence failure so I hope Ofcom take this seriously." Last year Ofcom fined BT £17million for being "ill-prepared" to respond to a failure of its emergency call handling service in 2023. In June 2025 BT experienced a network fault that affected its ability to connect 999 calls between 6am and 5pm. During this time nearly 14,000 call attempts were unsuccessful. A Three spokesperson said: 'We're sorry that Mr Henry couldn't use our network on Thursday. While outages of this nature are rare, we understand the impact they can have and are doing everything we can to ensure it doesn't happen again." An Ofcom spokesperson said: "Phone networks must take appropriate and proportionate measures to reduce the risk of - and prepare for - potential outages. Where we've found failures to do so, we've shown we'll take action. "We're aware that Three has experienced problems with its network, and we're in contact with the company to establish the scale and cause of the problem as soon as possible."
The Star
8 hours ago
- Health
- The Star
A neurologist shares his journey with Alzheimer's disease
It was 2006 when Dr Daniel Gibbs first noticed he was losing his sense of smell. But it wasn't what he didn't smell that tipped him off that something might be wrong. It was what he did smell: perfume, mixed with baked bread – 'The same thing, every time,' he said. The neurologist in Portland, Oregon, United States, knew this was an olfactory hallucination. And that meant something wasn't working properly in his brain. 'I attributed it to getting older, which is a common cause of decreased ability to smell,' he said. But Dr Gibbs was just 57 – not so old that he should be losing his sense of anything. 'I also knew losing your sense of smell was an early sign of Parkinson's disease, so I thought it might be that.' It wasn't. Dr Gibbs was experiencing an early symptom of Alzheimer's disease. But it would be another six years before he knew it. He has since written a book about his experience, which was turned into a documentary. He also keeps a regular blog to help people understand what it's like to live with Alzheimer's. These days, he spends a lot of his time learning and talking about how to slow progression of the disease – something he's been trying to do since he got his diagnosis more than a decade ago. Dr Gibbs and his wife, Lois Seed, discussed what he's learned about Alzheimer's dementia and how he navigates the condition for The Experts Say , an American Heart Association News series in which specialists explain how they apply their professional knowledge to their own lives. Their remarks have been edited in the below Q&A. When did you realise your symptoms were due to Alzheimer's disease? Dr Gibbs: In 2012, Lois was doing a genealogical project, so we did some genetic testing. Mine came back showing I had two copies of APOE4, a gene known to influence the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, which totally gobsmacked me. Having two copies means it is almost certain to eventually cause Alzheimer's. I had no measurable cognitive impairment at that time. I was in charge of the neurology resident training programme at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, and I was seeing patients in the clinic, so it was a very busy year for me. Even though it was difficult, I was still able to get all the balls to balance in the air. What did you do once you knew your genetic risk for Alzheimer's? Dr Gibbs: The first thing I did was to go to one of my colleagues and have some cognitive testing done. It was essentially normal with the caveat that all of my cognitive domains were in the 90th percentile except verbal memory, which was in the 50th percentile. So there was a strong hint that there was some incipient loss of function of verbal memory. With that in hand, I went to my department chair and explained the situation. I had no impairment, but did not feel it was safe for me to continue to practice. I retired in 2013. Seed: You also went looking for studies you could join, because it's a big deal to see people before they experience symptoms. Dr Gibbs: That's right, I went to the University of California in San Francisco, because they have a ton of studies there. The first study I was involved with was a longitudinal neuroimaging study. I had PET (positron emission tomography) scans of abnormal amyloid and PET scans for tau proteins – two protein clusters in the brain that play a role in the development of Alzheimer's disease. And I had cognitive testing. They loved having me down there because they rarely have people with as early a stage of disease as I showed up with. About a year later, I joined a clinical trial for an anti-amyloid antibody drug that is now approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat early Alzheimer's disease. What else did you learn about how to slow progression of the disease? Dr Gibbs: This is not rocket science. The sort of things that are good preventive behaviour for brain disease are also good for preventing heart and vascular disease. There are evidence-based lifestyle changes that include: Getting daily aerobic exercise Eating a Mediterranean-style diet, such as the MIND diet Getting mentally-stimulating activity Staying socially engaged Getting at least seven hours of sleep nightly, and Getting good control of any cerebrovascular risk factors, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity and smoking. What's good for the heart is good for the brain! Dr Gibbs notes that it is difficult to know what to expect as his Alzheimer's progresses as previously, most people with the disease were only living three to five years after the diagnosis as they were being diagnosed late. How do you put this knowledge into practice? Dr Gibbs: Walking is just built into my day. I do it with my dog, Jack, an 11-year-old English cocker spaniel who is about to age out. He can't keep up with 10,000 steps as easily any more, so I take some walks by myself. We live in the hills, so I'm getting very good aerobic exercise, short of running. I used to go to the gym, but that stopped at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. I also have a short workout at home. The first thing I do is I use resistance bands, which is a strength exercise. That takes about 15 minutes, and then I do tai chi pretty religiously, something I started six months ago. I can clearly see that it helps my balance, but I can't see if it helps my brain, which is continuing to do more poorly. And thanks to Lois, I've been eating a healthy diet, really forever. Seed: I didn't have control over those french fries you were eating. Dr Gibbs: I don't eat red meat any more. I closely follow the MIND diet, which is essentially the Mediterranean diet with more berries and nuts. It includes a heavy focus on fruits and vegetables, especially green leafy vegetables, beans, nuts, whole grains, seafood, lean poultry, and uses olive oil to cook. I'm quite happy with it. ALSO READ: What is MIND, the diet that may help protect against Alzheimer's disease? Because I lost my sense of smell, which is totally gone now, I have virtually no taste either. I eat the same thing for lunch and breakfast every day. I enjoy it. I make a sandwich on whole wheat bread that has tuna salad and garbanzo beans, avocado and arugula to get the dark leafy greens. Then some grapes or bananas, and half a dark chocolate bar. Breakfast is homemade granola, and I add cranberries or blueberries. I throw walnuts in as well. Dinner is whatever Lois picks that I can eat. I stopped drinking alcohol. There's no safe amount of alcohol if you are on this trajectory. So I got rid of it, but I used to love red wine. Do you know what to expect as the disease progresses? Dr Gibbs: That's a difficult question to answer. In the old days, when people got a diagnosis of Alzheimer's, they were only living three to five years after that because we made the diagnosis so late. There's less information out there about people who have known they have the disease for a long time and how they will do going forward. Seed: There's a lot of confusion and misconception because there are different types of dementia. Alzheimer's tends to progress more slowly. The early stage can last 20 years. Here we are 13 years after his diagnosis and Dan's really doing well. I'm a little more of a caregiver than I was a few years ago, but not by much. He dresses himself and monitors medications, and people who talk to him casually wouldn't even know. We've been at that plateau for quite some time. How would you describe the stage you're at right now? Dr Gibbs: Right now, I have mild Alzheimer's dementia. To say you have dementia is to say you are having trouble managing your personal affairs. I'm just at a stage now where I can't balance a chequebook. And as things go along, I will have more problems with memory and the ability to recognise people and remember their names. I've lost my train of thought. Seed: You were talking about what stage you're at. Dr Gibbs: When I'm not remembering where I am, then I will have severe dementia. There are memories I have going back through my whole life. They tend to be events that are emotionally-laden. I'm terrible with names. I know my immediate family members. My neighbours, I forget their names. Lois is taking over the things I can't manage any more, like the financial part of our lives, anything that involves planning ahead, scheduling, calendars, remembering all the family stuff, managing the household. She also goes with me when I have a talk to give. Seed: He gives talks on Alzheimer's, but almost every time that Dan is getting ready to speak to a group, he gets frustrated and says, 'This is the last time I'm doing this,' because getting his thoughts together is challenging. He writes out notes. Most of the talks he gives now are screening events for the film with question-and-answer sessions. Dr Gibbs: It works well if Lois is there to find ... Seed: Words. Dr Gibbs: That makes it easier. – By Laura Williamson/American Heart Association News/Tribune News Service
India Today
8 hours ago
- Health
- India Today
Endocrinologist Dr. Ambrish Mithal on the happy side-effects of weight-loss drugs
New-age weight-loss drugs are exploding the pharmaceutical market, offering better results than traditional medicines. Top endocrinologist Dr. Ambrish Mithal deconstructs the many facets, including side-effects, of these GLP-1 drugs in his recently published book The Weight Loss Revolution, in an episode of India Today's said that while the GLP-1 field -- drugs that belong to the class of GLP-1 targeting the same hormone in the body -- is just beginning to explode, there'll be many newer drugs with less and less side effects and easier to most cases have shown muscle loss as a prominent result of using GLP-1 medications like tirzepatide or semaglutide, Dr. Mithal explains that losing muscle is an accompanying factor to weight loss. "In the long run, if you're not following a healthy diet, you will end up with significant muscle loss. And this is not because of the weight-loss drugs. Whenever we lose weight, we also lose muscle. If you lose 10 kg, you've lost 2-3 kg of muscle. Now, if you want to preserve that, you have to ensure adequate protein and fibre in your diet. Along with that, you have to make sure that you're exercising regularly and that exercise should include strength training," Dr. Mithal also shared what many people experience loose skin after taking these medicines. "When you lose weight rapidly, you lose subcutaneous fat. Particularly in older people where skin tends to sag anyway. If you suddenly lose weight, don't hydrate yourself well, not eating the right kind of balanced diet, then you get that little sagging on the face which people have started calling Ozempic face. Before these drugs came into the market, anyone we put on a very strict diet or someone who had bariatric surgery would see similar results," he gastrointestinal side-effects, nausea, and vomiting, Dr. Mithal addressed concerns about thyroid cancer, highlighting that there's no evidence to link the also explained the "happy side-effects" of GLP-1 medications. Besides growing body of evidence suggesting how semaglutide is linked to Alzheimer's disease, Dr. Mithal said that the benefits of the drugs are moving beyond weight loss."The evidence that they might be helping Alzheimer's by helping obesity in the brain may actually be very exciting, and even for cardiac health, Parkinson's disease. Cardiac events are reduced. Fatty liver is reduced. Kidney disease progression is reduced. But the brain effects are particularly fascinating. Sleep apnea has also gone down," he said, adding that the drugs have also helped improve fertility outcomes in women with PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome).Currently, most GLP-1 drugs are injectable and expensive, limiting their access in India. However, new formulations and more research are on the way. Novo Nordisk's Wegovy and Eli Lilly's Mounjaro, two blockbuster fat-busting medicines, are set to gain ground in India to tackle the diabetes and obesity crisis."Remember, the GLP-1 field is just beginning to explode. There'll be many newer drugs with less and less side effects and easier to use," Dr. Mithal sayssaid.- EndsMust Watch
Engadget
20 hours ago
- Health
- Engadget
Peter Thiel is utterly wrong about Alzheimer's
The New York Times ran a lengthy interview this morning between columnist Ross Douthat and venture capitalist and PayPal founder Peter Thiel. There's a reason it was published in the opinion section. Thiel, a Trump booster whose allies — including Vice President JD Vance — now litter the White House, was given free reign to discuss a variety of topics across over an hour of softball questions. Is Greta Thunberg the literal antichrist? Are the three predominant ideological schools in Europe environmentalism, "Islamic Shariah law" and "Chinese Communist totalitarian takeover"? Is AI "woke" and capable of following Elon Musk to Mars? Peter seems to think so! Perhaps the "just asking questions" school of journalism could add " hey, what the fuck are you talking about " to its repertoire. Admittedly, many of these assertions fall squarely into the realm of things that exist within Thiel's mind palace rather than verifiable facts, with at least one notable exception. Relatively early in their chat, Peter tells Ross the following [emphasis ours]: If we look at biotech, something like dementia, Alzheimer's — we've made zero progress in 40 to 50 years. People are completely stuck on beta amyloids. It's obviously not working. It's just some kind of a stupid racket where the people are just reinforcing themselves. It's a pretty bold claim! It's also completely untrue. "There was no treatment 40 or 50 years ago for Alzheimer's disease," Sterling Johnson, a professor of Geriatrics and Gerontology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, told Engadget. "What we've been able to do in the last 20 years has been actually pretty extraordinary. We've developed markers that help us identify when this disease starts, using the using amyloid markers and tau biomarkers, we know that the disease actually begins 20 years before the symptoms do, and that is a critical thing to know if we are going to prevent this disease." At the moment, Alzheimer's remains incurable. But the absence of a miracle cure does not negate the accomplishments thus far in detection and prevention. "The first treatments were these window dressing treatments. It's like treating the symptoms like you would treat a cold [...] The first generation of amyloid therapy was that kind of approach where it just addressed the symptoms by amping up the neurons and increasing the neurotransmitters available to the to the brain cells." Johnson, whose team runs one of the largest and longest studies on people at risk for developing Alzheimer's diseases, added, "Now we have opportunities to actually modify the disease biology through the amyloid pathway, but also we're focused on the other proteinopathy — which is tau — and there's clinical trials underway." Thiel, a well-known advocate for advancements in radical life extension (including a reported interest in injecting himself with the blood of young people) sees the state of scientific research in this area as sluggish and risk averse. But the groundbreaking work is happening at this moment. Professor Johnson pointed to a monoclonal antibody called gantenerumab. In an early test of 73 participants with inherited mutations that would cause them to overproduce amyloid in the brain, it cut the number of participants who developed Alzheimer's symptoms practically in half. "The big phase three prevention trials [of gantenerumab] are happening right now," For someone who fashions himself as a heterodox thinker, Thiel certainly seems to have stumbled on a remarkably similar talking point to current Trump administration FDA head Robert F Kennedy Jr. "Alzheimer's is a very, very good example of how [National Institute of Health] has gone off the rails over the past 20 years ago with research on amyloid plaques" Kennedy said at a Department of Health budgetary hearing last month. He claimed the NIH was "cutting off any other hypothesis" due to "corruption." Unsurprisingly, the Alzheimer's Association has called this "demonstrably false." "In reality, over the most recent 10 years available (2014-2023), less than 14% of new National Institutes of Health (NIH) Alzheimer's projects focused on amyloid beta as the therapeutic target," the organization wrote, "As of September 2024, the National Institute on Aging was investing in 495 pharmacological and non-pharmacological trials. To state that Alzheimer's research is focused on amyloid to the exclusion of other targets is clearly wrong." If I, personally, wanted more robust medical research and a chance an eternal life (I don't), greasing the wheels of an administration broadly gutting funding for science would be a strange way to make that happen. But this is the sort of incoherence we've come to expect from tech oligarchs: they say what benefits them, even if it's nonsense on its face, even if a moment's reflection reveals it to be patently false. What's embarrassing is the paper of record giving them free reign to do it.
