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7205. wonkers2 - 12/20/2007 12:58:53 AM It's frightening to think of a woman that young having Alzheimer's. I know it does happen, but I've been under the impression that onset is more often in the 70s and 80s. My mother died at 87 having had increasing dementia or Alzheimers for about three years. Pretty much the same for my wife's mother who died at 89 as I recall. They both became difficult to deal with toward the end. 7206. judithathome - 12/20/2007 4:30:55 PM Have you seen "Away From Her"?
7207. arkymalarky - 12/23/2007 2:50:19 AM The hardest part of everything I'm doing is exercising. I hate it. I walked two miles on the treadmill today and I'm determined to do it every day, then add stuff I like to do but don't have the built up energy for right now, like aerobics. 7208. arkymalarky - 12/23/2007 2:52:50 AM I don't know if I told about this before, but we now have an exercise room. We have a very nice weight machine with a stepper, an exercise bicycle, a treadmill, a mini-tramp, and a tv with a dvd player for exercise videos. We have less than $100 in the whole thing. 7209. arkymalarky - 12/23/2007 2:54:26 AM I told a friend at work I'm waiting for Bob's sister to give up her elliptical/clothes rack. 7210. thoughtful - 12/24/2007 4:26:11 PM Glad you're sticking with it Arky. I know treadmill inside even with tv is extremely tedious for me. Fortunately I'm able to walk outside and dealing with the ever-changing sky and the temperature and the wind and the sounds while listening to a book on tape is sufficient distraction for me to actually find the walks enjoyable.
The video of Lisa above is really amazing. I think the mother clearly has some kind of dementia, most likely alzheimers with the inability to keep track of time, identify people who are close to them, forgetting common names of words and so on. There are many children who for various reasons are forced to be more responsible than the parents who brought them into the world. A sad situation. I can only imagine being in Lisa's shoes, scared to death to ask for help for her mother lest she be forced into some awful foster care situation...yet terrified of what she'll find someday coming home from school...that her mom's accidentally burned the house down or something. Very sad. 7211. arkymalarky - 12/24/2007 6:33:49 PM Thanks, Thoughtful. We have a beautiful one mile loop on our property that Bob has really made into a great, even, clean trail--he walks three miles a day. When I get my allergies back under control I will do it some except when it's too hot. For now, with it getting dark so early and me not being a morning person, the treadmill works well and I walk with varieties of steps to peppy music videos. That stops the boredom and gets me moving more in the same amount of time and miles than plain walking would. 7212. Magoseph - 12/24/2007 9:41:55 PM The actresses in the video "My Name Is Lisa" are excellent. 7213. robertjayb - 1/9/2008 9:34:41 PM U.S. dead last in health survey...(AFP)
WASHINGTON (AFP) - France is tops, and the United States dead last, in providing timely and effective healthcare to its citizens, according to a survey Tuesday of preventable deaths in 19 industrialized countries.
.................................................
....researchers found that while most countries surveyed saw preventable deaths decline by an average of 16 percent, the United States saw only a four percent dip.
The non-profit Commonwealth Fund, which financed the study, expressed alarm at the findings.
"It is startling to see the US falling even farther behind on this crucial indicator of health system performance," said Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen, who noted that "other countries are reducing these preventable deaths more rapidly, yet spending far less."
The 19 countries, in order of best to worst, were: France, Japan, Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Sure glad we don't have that bad old socialized medicine...
7214. wonkers2 - 1/9/2008 10:12:58 PM Thanks, RJB, I sent the article to my brother-in-law who works in Big Pharma. 7215. robertjayb - 1/9/2008 11:20:38 PM Reversal of Alzheimer's symptoms claimed...
ScienceDaily (Jan. 9, 2008) — An extraordinary new scientific study, which for the first time documents marked improvement in Alzheimer’s disease within minutes of administration of a therapeutic molecule, has just been published in the Journal of Neuroinflammation.
7216. judithathome - 1/10/2008 12:36:24 AM And how long before it's used on the general public? Probably not before I'm past help..... 7217. wonkers2 - 1/10/2008 12:56:00 AM Wow! That could be dynamite! 7218. thoughtful - 1/10/2008 7:48:57 PM Very exciting for those suffering with alzheimers, and especially for their care givers. Also very exciting in that the drug is already in the market place and is sold.
Unfortunately though, not all dementia is caused by alzheimers. Would not have helped my MIL, for example, who had plain old hardening of the arteries as we used to call it. 7219. robertjayb - 1/10/2008 11:45:28 PM Big Pharma Front Group Launches Anonymous Blog To Publish An ‘Enemies List’
Washington DC Councilmember David Catania has been pushing a bill to require the licensing of pharmaceutical representatives and to prohibit them from providing knowingly false information to doctors. Many pharmaceutical sales reps try to “influence doctors’ prescribing decisions in ways that have little to do with the best interest of the patient” by resorting to “questionable methods, including providing gifts and meals to doctors” in order to promote their drugs.
Advocates of the pharmaceutical industry responded by launching an anonymous blog site devoted to defending the industry’s practices. The site — BigPharmaRealPeople — “grabbed attention with an enemies list” which included Catania, whom it called “public enemy #1.”
The site’s editors had refused to disclose their names and instead adopted the identities from characters in Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged. Recently, a poster named “John Galt” revealed himself to be Scott McTavish, a sales rep, sales manager and director for three Big Pharma Companies over the past 30 years. Blogging over at Pharmalot, Ed Silverman challenges the front group to disclose its sponsorship and backing:
One other thing, Scott. Since you chose not to answer any of our messages directly, we are still curious to know more about your background and those of your ’staff.’ We would also like to know what, if any, sponsorship or backing you may have. If you really do enjoy an open debate about all the facts, more disclosure would be helpful - unless your site is merely an example of astroturfing dressed up as a social networking experiment.
The avowed mission of the Big Pharma front group’s website is to “remind the American public who is actually on their side” and to “fight ridiculous government rules and regulation that hamper Big Pharma.” The site’s authors write:
The purpose of BigPharmaRealPeople.org is the following: … To point out that corporations are not faceless, evil giants that take advantage of the individual.
The Washington City Paper responds, “Have to say, guys — this anonymous Web site isn’t doing much to combat that whole ‘faceless’ thing.” And the site isn’t having much success thus far. Catania’s bill passed the D.C. City Council on Tuesday.
(Think Progress) 7220. wabbit - 1/11/2008 12:11:37 AM Message # 7215 - That's good news about Enbrel. I've been using it for 5-6 years now, though my injections are subcutaneous, not perispinal. Maybe the price will start to come down if they continue to find other uses for the drug. Right now it runs about $1700/month (for four injections). 7221. arkymalarky - 1/11/2008 12:57:19 AM Damn. 7222. wonkers2 - 1/11/2008 2:02:59 AM Wow, bottled gold. 7223. robertjayb - 1/11/2008 7:28:57 PM Saliva test for breast cancer...(HouChron)
Houston researchers are developing a test to diagnose breast cancer from saliva, an advance that eventually should enable dentists and physicians to alert patients during routine office visits.
In a study published Thursday, a team at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, led by a dentist, reported that specific protein markers in saliva can easily identify people with breast cancer cells, benign tumor cells and healthy cells.
"This will be a noninvasive, quick means of detection," said Dr. Charles Streckfus, a UT-Houston Dental Branch professor of diagnostic sciences who has expertise in molecular epidemiology and salivary function. "With it, dentists will be able to catch cancers before a woman can feel a lump."
7224. robertjayb - 1/11/2008 7:58:30 PM A Chronicle reader comments on the breast cancer saliva test...
The work has already been done and published by researchers at UCLA under Dr. David Wong. It has been in the news for at least five years since they first mapped the proteins and RNA to find squamous cell carcinoma, (oral cancer) and later to find breast cancer, diabetes, and now they are looking at Alsheimer's. If find it disturbing that theses doctors in their press releases (appearing all over the US today) are making it sound like they are the ones that made a break through. The NIH via the NIDCR has thrown about 60 million dollars at this technology and idea. Most of the money has gone to the UCLA/Wong team. This is the worst part of the publish or perish behavior...GRANDSTANDING by researchers or doctors on data that only replicates something that has already been done. More than that, if something is going to get commercialized it will be the longer term, bigger studies, work out of UCLA. These guys have done nothing more than validate again what already is known. Anyone who doubts this post should just do a Goggle fo salivary diagnostics, UCLAS, and Wong.
What they haven't explained is the epiphany that took Wong to this place. How do breast cancer markers end up in saliva? The parotid glands which produce about 85% of all your saliva are fed by thousands of capillaries carrying blood. The liquid part of that blood, the serum in absorbed by the Parotids that add enzymes and turn it into saliva. But the biomarkers that were in blood in the first place are not filtered out and exist intact in the saliva. You can't find these easily in blood because of all the other detritus that is circulating around in it, cells, etc. Wong is the guy with that insight.
This is likely the best candidate assay system for mass screening using a simple, non labor intensive, programmed computer chip to look for the markers ever. We will be able by just spitting into a test tube determine much about our systemic health. The real work now is to map as many disease biomarkers as possible to find if other disease can also be found in saliva.
1/11/2008 10:30 AM CST
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