50% of Alzheimer's Cases May Be Preventable

Monkeys keep their gray matter throughout their lives

(NEWSER) - Next time you start to feel mentally superior to a chimp, think again. It turns out that while human brains shrink as they age, chimpanzee brains do not, a new George Washington University study has discovered. The findings upend the conventional wisdom that all primates saw their brains shrink over time, the Wall Street Journal explains—in fact, the researchers now suspect that only humans decline in this way. More»

Studies link obesity with declining mental faculties

(NEWSER) - Being fat could make you lose your mind, recent research suggests. One recent long-term study found that overweight people experienced a much more pronounced and rapid decline in brain functions, writes Olivia Judson at the New York Times Opinionator blog. Another found that middle-aged obese people have smaller, more atrophied brains than the thin—and that atrophy is a leading feature of dementia. Still another study noticed that even among the young and healthy, fatter people had lower brain-matter density. More»

High leptin levels linked to lower rates of disease

(NEWSER) - High levels of a hormone that regulates appetite has been linked to a much lower risk of developing Alzheimer's disease in new research. Scientists probing the connection between obesity and Alzheimer's found that out of the 198 volunteers studied, those with the highest levels of leptin were four times less likely to develop the disease than those with the lowest, raising new possibilities for treatment. More»

(NEWSER) - An immune-system booster already used in the treatment of other diseases could prove to be a powerful weapon in the fight against Alzheimer's disease, researchers have found. Analyzing the records of patients who received intravenous immunoglobulin—IVIg—they discovered that recipients were 42% less likely to develop Alzheimer's, HealthDay reports. More»

Nursing home study suggests that social engagement maintains memory

(NEWSER) - An exclusive club of senior citizens—people who have passed 90 without suffering from dementia—is helping researchers delve into the secrets of aging and the keys to staving off mental decline. "The most successful agers on earth," who represent just one-half of 1% of the population, are "only just beginning to teach us what’s important," a neurologist. tells the New York Times. Their secret? Bridge. More»