[Michaelangelica]

Smoking is 'good for your memory and concentration'

By David Derbyshire
Last updated at 11:18 AM on 14th August 2008
commentsComments (8)


Smoking can aid concentration and the memory, offering hope of a nicotine pill to help Alzheimer's sufferers

Smoking can help boost memory and concentration, say scientists. The discovery offers hope of a nicotine pill that mimics these effects to treat Alzheimer's disease.

Experts are developing drugs that copy the active ingredients in tobacco that stimulate the brain without causing heart disease, cancer, stroke or addiction.

The move follows the discovery that nicotine can boost the intelligence and recall ability of animals in laboratory experiments.

The researchers, who present their latest findings at a brain conference today, hope that the new drugs, which will be available in five years, could have fewer side effects than existing medicines for dementia.

Smoking is 'good for your memory and concentration' | Mail Online

Does this mean you get your choice of how to die?

Or perhaps we should go back to the original American Indian smoking mix which included Lobelia inflata and a stack of other herbs?

[Michaelangelica]

Pratchett warns of Alzheimer's toll

19 hours ago


Best selling novelist Terry Pratchett won a standing ovation at the Tory conference when he made a moving plea for more to be done to combat the rising toll from Alzheimer's disease.

Mr Pratchett, author of the Discworld books, recently donated one million dollars for research after being diagnosed with an early onset form of the disease.

As guest speaker, he warned the country was facing a "tsunami" of dementia suffering and the load on the NHS and society as a whole could become "unbearable".

Mr Pratchett, who is not a Conservative, said: "If the disease is not stopped or slowed, the country will have to deal with a large population of helpless elderly."

Insisting that "big" decisions were required soon, he asked: "Is there going to be a government of any stripe willing to put its money where its mouth is ... or will dementia remain the most feared disease of the over-55s, facing ... loss of dignity and all too often the chemical cosh".

He likened his own experience of Alzheimer's, for which there is no cure, to a "slow motion car crash ... with always, at the back of your mind, the thought that sooner or later you'll go through the windscreen".

Cancer patients were seen as "brave battlers", while dementia sufferers were regarded in some quarters as "superfluous old-farts". People laughed about the disease. But there was an "element of fear".

With more than a million people forecast to be suffering from the disease by 2025 the cost of dealing it will run into billions of pounds. "The toll of this nasty disease is greater than you think. An appreciable number of people in this room will be affected by it. Dementia isn't a disease of the bumbling elderly. People get it in their 50s and 60s," he said.

Pausing occasionally due to the effects of the disease, Mr Pratchett said the strain on carers and their support was "bad enough now".

With a rising number of sufferers, he warned that unless more research was done to combat Alzheimer's: "Before long the effects on the NHS and society as a whole will be far too heavy. The load will be unbearable. What is unthinkable is to do nothing at all."

The Press Association: Pratchett warns of Alzheimer's toll

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[Michaelangelica]

Grape seeds could stop Alzheimer's
Monday, 10 November 2008
Flinders University
Professor Xin-Fu Zhou

We’ve all been spitting them out for years, but now grape seeds have been identified by Flinders University researchers as a potential treatment in preventing the development of Alzheimer’s disease.

Using a mouse model, a team of medical scientists in the Department of Human Physiology, headed by Professor Xin-Fu Zhou, has found that adding grape seed extract to the diet acts to prevent the formation of deposits of amyloid proteins in the brain.

Professor Zhou said that over-production of amyloid-beta proteins, or the body’s failure to degrade them, leads to the formation of clumps or snarls in the brain and is a major cause of Alzheimer’s disease.
. . .
“We found that grape seed extract was a very powerful agent in reducing amyloid-beta deposits in the brain. It also produced marginal improvements in cognitive function and, most importantly, reduced inflammation,” Professor Zhou said.

Grape seeds could stop Alzheimer's*(ScienceAlert)