News

A new research study has found that the use of benzodiazepines and related drugs increases the risk of hip fracture by 43 percent in people with Alzheimer’s disease. The study was conducted in community-dwelling Finnish people with Alzheimer’s who were evaluated for their hip fracture risk. The results of…

Tiny gas bubbles, embedded in a layer of fat molecules, can turn out to be the answer to a difficulty researchers have been struggling with for decades — the delivery of drugs to the brain. The method uses ultrasound to force the drug-containing bubbles over the barrier that prevents most substances from…

In the wake of the failure of the investigational drug solanezumab, which stirred the debate over whether the prevailing amyloid theory of Alzheimer’s disease is still a viable working hypothesis, ProMIS Neurosciences announced their contribution to Alzheimer’s amyloid-related drug development. The announcement was accompanied by a commentary interpreting…

Women perform better than men on all memory measures but these sex differences tend to disappear as women age and enter menopause, according to a study published in the journal Menopause. These findings highlights the importance of ovarian hormones in maintaining memory function and could explain the reason why women are almost twice as likely as men to develop Alzheimer’s disease.

A study led by Finnish researchers found that long-term use of opioids, painkillers that can be addictive, is common among people in that country with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), but at rates similar to people match by age, gender, and region of residence. The study, “Long-term use of opioids for non-malignant pain…

At a time when predictions of a dementia epidemic flourish, a recent study demonstrated that the rates have actually gone down in the U.S. — echoing findings from other studies that suggest that the idea of an epidemic is unfounded. Forces behind the decline in dementia diagnoses are complex, and…

The Alzheimer’s community lamented Eli Lilly’s recent announcement that its experimental therapy solanezumab failed to demonstrate efficacy in treating the disease in recent clinical trials. In the announcement, released Nov. 23, Lilly said it would not pursue regulartory approval for the drug. Solanezumab’s inability to demonstrate effectiveness in people with mild demential due to…

The Alzheimer’s Association has awarded a $118,673 grant to a researcher at Boston University School of Medicine to study how obesity affects brain aging and, potentially, a person’s risk of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. The researcher, Claudia Satizabal, has been associated for several years with the Framingham Heart Study, working with Dr.

Anavex Life Sciences reported that its experimental drug Anavex 2-73 prevented further decline in mental capacity in a small Phase 2a trial involving 32 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease. Although the trial was not designed to prove the treatment’s effectiveness, after about 10 months, patients had the same mental acuity…

A process believed to trigger toxicity and neuron death in Alzheimer’s disease may actually work to protect neurons in early disease stages — a finding that may be translated into treatments that boost this protective effect. Phosphorylated tau, which tends to aggregate into tangles inside neurons and is widely believed to…