Critical illness, most feared than death, is one reason why some file for bankruptcy by Dan Mangan
Scientists find clue to age-related memory loss
WASHINGTON – Scientists have found a compelling clue in the quest to learn what causes age-related memory problems, and to one day be able to tell if those misplaced car keys are just a senior moment or an early warning of something worse.
Wednesday’s report offers evidence that age-related memory loss really is a distinct condition from pre-Alzheimer’s – and offers a hint that what we now consider the normal forgetfulness of old age might eventually be treatable.
Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center examined brains, young and old ones, donated from people who died without signs of neurologic disease. They discovered that a certain gene in a specific part of the hippocampus, the brain’s memory center, quits working properly in older people. It produces less of a key protein.
That section of the brain, called the dentate gyrus, has long been suspected of being especially vulnerable to aging. Importantly, it’s a different neural neighborhood than where Alzheimer’s begins to form.
But it’s circumstantial evidence that having less of that protein, named RbAp48, affects memory loss in older adults. So the researchers took a closer look at mice, which become forgetful as they age in much the same way that people do.
Sure enough, cutting levels of the protein made healthy young rodents lose their way in mazes and perform worse on other memory tasks just like old mice naturally do.
More intriguing, the memory loss was reversible: Boosting the protein made forgetful old mice as sharp as the youngsters again, the researchers reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
“It’s the best evidence so far” that age-related memory loss isn’t the same as early Alzheimer’s, said Nobel laureate Dr. Eric Kandel, who led the Columbia University team.
And since some people make it to 100 without showing much of a cognitive slowdown, the work begs another question: “Is that normal aging, or is it a deterioration that we’re allowing to occur?” Kandel said.
“As we want to live longer and stay engaged in a cognitively complex world, I think even mild age-related memory decline is meaningful,” added Columbia neurologist Dr. Scott Small, a senior author of the study. “It opens up a whole avenue of investigation to now try to identify interventions.”
This is early-stage research that will require years of additional work to confirm, cautioned Dr. Molly Wagster of the National Institute on Aging, who wasn’t involved with the report.
But Wagster said the findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting “that we’re not all on the road to Alzheimer’s disease” after we pass a certain age.
For example, other researchers have found that connections between neurons in other parts of the brain weaken with normal aging, making it harder but not impossible to retrieve memories. In contrast, Alzheimer’s kills neurons.
How does Wednesday’s research fit? Many pathways make up a smoothly functioning memory, and that protein plays a role in turning a short-term memory – like where you left those car keys – into a longer-term one, Kandel explained.
Some good news: Scientists already know that exercise makes the dentate gyrus – that age-targeted spot in the hippocampus – function better, Small said. He’s also studying if nutrition might make a difference.
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Migraine could be associated with brain damage by Geoffrey Mohan
That head-splitting migraine attack that knocks you off your feet may also put you at risk of permanent changes in the brain, an analysis of 19 medical studies found.
The potential for increased abnormalities in the signal-carrying white matter of the brain appears strongest among those who suffer headache warning symptoms, such as flashes of light, blind spots and tingling, according to the analysis published online Wednesday in the journal Neurology. Those “migraine with aura” sufferers were about 1.7 times as likely to have such anomalies than were the non-migraine population, the analysis found.
But the significance of these white-matter blips and other tissue changes remains elusive, and there is some question about whether the neurological variances from the norm mark a migraine-prone brain or the ravages of the attacks, researchers said.
At best, doctors have concluded that what they see on patients’ magnetic resonance imagery amounts to a “benign imaging correlate” of migraine. They’re there, they are associated with migraine, and that’s where the hard evidence stops.
“Part of the message I hope to communicate here is: If you have migraine with aura and you have white-matter lesions, they’re probably not a cause of concern,” said study coauthor Dr. Richard B. Lipton, a neurologist who heads the Montefiore Headache Center in the Bronx, N.Y.
Migraine headaches affect about 10%-15% of the population, about a third of whom experience aura symptoms, according to the study. The symptoms can cause substantial impairment and hardship, including lost work hours and high medical costs.
Though research centers have sprung up at medical centers such as Montefiore, methods of studying the malady have varied enough that a comprehensive analysis of data proved difficult. Of the 19 studies covered in the analysis, for example, only one followed a sample through time, and that sample was relatively small and covered less than nine years. Results of 13 clinic-based studies, on the other hand, can be difficult to generalize because the samples are skewed to those already in treatment. Even the estimates of the prevalence of white-matter anomalies among migraine sufferers ranged from 4% to 59%, the meta-analysis found.
Still, enough data have accrued to recommend therapies that reduce the incidence of migraine, particularly among those with aura symptoms who may also have additional risk factors for stroke, Lipton said. Other studies have suggested that those who suffer from migraine with aura have twice the risk of a stroke, Lipton noted.
“If you have migraine with aura, certainly you shouldn’t smoke,” Lipton said. “Certainly, if you are going to use oral contraceptives, you should use the lowest possible hormonal dose. If you have other stroke risk factors such as hypertension or diabetes or high cholesterol, it becomes particularly important to manage those risk factors.”
That “you never know” approach, Lipton said, has the added benefit of short-term improvements in quality of life.
But the inconclusive nature of the analysis leaves big questions unanswered, said Dr. Peter Goadsby, a neurologist who heads UC San Francisco’s headache lab, who was not involved in the analysis. “A meta-problem with the area,” he said, “is people with migraine don’t die. That’s good, because people not dying is very good. However, it does limit what you say if you can’t see what the pathology is. And therein lies the problem.”
Studies of the tiny lesions that have the appearance of a stroke scar proved mostly inconclusive, according to the analysis. And it turned up no significant evidence of cognitive decline or other neurological symptoms from such lesions or other white-matter anomalies. Whether these lesions are evidence of undiagnosed mini-strokes remained unclear as well.
Perhaps more disconcerting is the ambiguity surrounding the direction of the correlations that were found. It may just be that strange white-matter phenomena on magnetic resonance images are intriguing hints at what makes for a migraine-prone brain, Lipton and Goadsby said.
“All of these things come back to one overarching question, and that is whether the brain of the migraine patient starts out different,” Goadsby said.
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Music Festival to benefit Mental Health, NAPA California
This Year’s Festival Expands to Two Days with Tim McGraw.
OR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 18, 2013
Media Contact:
Fuller & Sander Communications
Tom Fuller, 707-253-0868
tom@fullerandsander.com,
Monty Sander, 707-253-8503
monty@fullerandsander.com
19th Annual Music Festival for Mental Health Expands to Two Days
“Country & Soul” to feature GRAMMY® Award-winning musician Tim McGraw and rising R&B recording star Allen Stone
Event to be held September 7 & 8, 2013 at the Staglin Family Vineyard
June 18, 2013, Napa Valley, CA — The 19th Annual Music Festival for Mental Health will be held on Saturday, September 7th, and Sunday, September 8th, 2013 at the Staglin Family Vineyard in Rutherford, Napa Valley, California. This year’s festival expands to two days for the first time, featuring “Country & Soul”, with GRAMMY® Award-winning musician Tim McGraw, honorary chairman of the Tug McGraw Foundation, and rising R&B Recording Star Allen Stone. Stone kicks off the festival on Saturday, September 7th and McGraw brings his legendary music to the intimate Staglin stage on Sunday, September 8th.
Celebrating 19 years, the Music Festival for Mental Health is one of America’s most important mental health fund-raising events, with an historical total, including grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, surpassing $150 million. Last year alone, the event raised over $2.1 million to support the research to find cures for brain disorders. The 19th Annual Music Festival for Mental Health benefits the International Mental Health Research Organization (“IMHRO”), One Mind™, and the Tug McGraw Foundation, partnering to support research, education, treatment, and fight the stigma surrounding mental health.
“I’m honored to be able to help in the effort to seek the causes and cures of brain related disorders,” stated Tim McGraw. “I meet returning troops every night out on the road and a lot of them are living with invisible wounds like PTSD or other Traumatic Brain Injuries. The Tug McGraw Foundation is doing great work to help combat these disorders and the stigmas attached to them. I’m looking forward to this event in September and partnering with the Staglin Family to lend my support.”
“We couldn’t be more happy with our ‘Country and Soul’ lineup this year,” said Garen Staglin, President of IMHRO and Co-Chairman of One Mind™. “Allen Stone will kick off the festival on Saturday with his incredible talent and infectious, soulful energy. And what can you say about Tim McGraw? We are very grateful that he has agreed to join us for our first ever Sunday festival performance, and we are thrilled to be partnering with the Tug McGraw Foundation. Our combined efforts will surely add to the momentum we are experiencing to raise awareness, reduce stigma and accelerate research that will lead to cures and treatments for all brain disorders.”
The Festival kicks off on Saturday, September 7th, with the scientific symposium featuring keynote Sophia Vinogradov, MD University of California, San Francisco speaking about “New Tools to Improve Brain Functioning in Psychiatric Illness: Neuroplasticity-Based Treatments and Beyond”. The symposium is followed by the world’s greatest cult wine tasting paired with hors d’oeuvres prepared by Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto and executive chef Nai Kang Kuan of Morimoto Napa, culminating with an exciting concert performance by rising R&B/Soul recording star Allen Stone. San Francisco Bay Area comic, radio, TV and film personality Bob Sarlatte emcees. Immediately following the concert, enjoy an exclusive Napa Valley feast under the stars at the VIP post-concert dinner by chefs John Folse and Rick Tramonto of celebrated Restaurant R’evolution in New Orleans paired with Staglin Family Vineyard wines. Sunday features an excitingfood, wine & beer reception followed by a performance by GRAMMY® Award-winning musician Tim McGraw, bringing his legendary music and chart-topping hits to the intimate Staglin Family stage. The entertaining and colorful John Kruk, former Major League Baseball star and current ESPN Baseball analyst emcees.
Scheduled to appear at this year’s festival are former Congressman Patrick Kennedy, Co-Chairman of One Mind™, and Peter Chiarelli, General, US Army (retired) CEO of One Mind™.
Festival passes begin at $750 for a one-day pass, to $6,000 for a two-day VIP pass including Saturday’s post concert VIP dinner and Sunday’s post concert VIP reception. VIP sponsor opportunities begin at $50,000. Passes are available at http://www.music-festival.org. For VIP sponsor opportunities please call Cindy Dyar at (707) 963-4038 or email Cindy@imhro.org or visit http://www.music-festival.org. Admission to the September 7th symposium only is free with prior registration. Proceeds to benefit mental health research projects throughout the nation.
For more information, please call Cindy Dyar at (707) 963-4038 or email Cindy@imhro.org or visit http://www.music-festival.org.
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300 DPI IMAGES AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST
About IMHRO
International Mental Health Research Organization (IMHRO) is committed to raising awareness and funding research to find preventions and cures for schizophrenia, major depression and bipolar disorder within a generation. Psychiatric diseases cause much suffering, both for people afflicted and those who love them. This likely includes someone you know, as one in five people live with a psychiatric disease. It is the number one cause of adult disability in the world. IMHRO is families and individuals whose lives have been touched by brain disorders – and who have seen how far mental health research has come in the last decade. Contributors to IMHRO have resulted in $150 million for research, changed thousands of lives, and funded stunning discoveries for better therapies now and tomorrow. http://www.imhro.org
About the Tug McGraw Foundation
TMF was established by Tug McGraw in 2003 to raise funds to enhance the quality of life of children and adults with brain tumors and their families by stimulating and facilitating research that addresses the physical, social, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual impact of the disease. Recognizing that other areas of brain research—such as traumatic brain injury and Post traumatic Stress Disorder—inform the science surrounding brain cancer, TMF has widened its scope to include a broader spectrum of the neuroscience to support advances in medical care and quality of life for our nation’s battle-wounded, ill and injured service members. http://www.tugmcgraw.org
About One Mind™
One Mind is a new-model non-profit organization that will take the lead role in the research, funding, marketing, and public awareness of mental illness and brain injury, by bringing together the governmental, corporate, scientific, and philanthropic communities in a concerted effort to drastically reduce the social and economic effects of mental illness and brain injury within ten years. With ONE MIND as the hub for open-source big data and research, compelling the scientific, health care, and pharmaceutical communities to collaborate completely for the common good, we can decrease the time from research to treatment/cure from 30 years to less than a decade. 1mind4research.org
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Autism have mutated cancer or tumor genes
Researchers studying two seemingly unrelated conditions — autism and cancer — have unexpectedly converged on a surprising discovery. Some people with autism have mutated cancer or tumor genes that apparently caused their brain disorder.
Christopher Berkey for The New York Times
Richard Ewing, 10, who’s autistic and has a tumor-causing gene, with his father and sister in Nashville.
Ten percent of children with mutations in a gene called PTEN, which cause cancers of the breast, colon, thyroid and other organs, have autism. So do about half of children with gene mutations that can lead to some kinds of brain and kidney cancer and large tumors in several organs, including the brain. That is many times the rate of autism in the general population.
“It’s eerie,” Evan Eichler, a professor of genome science at the University of Washington, said about the convergence.
He and others caution that the findings apply to only a small proportion of people with autism; in most cases, the cause remains a mystery. And as with nearly all genetic disorders, not everyone with the mutations develops autism or cancer, or other disorders associated with the genes, like epilepsy, enlarged brains and benign brain tumors.
But researchers say the findings are intriguing, given that there are no animals that naturally get autism, no way of analyzing what might cause autism in developing brains and no cure. The newly discovered link has enabled scientists to genetically engineer mice with many symptoms of the human disorder.
And it has led to the first clinical trial of a treatment for children with autism, using the drug that treats tumors that share the same genetic basis.
Richard Ewing of Nashville, a 10-year-old who has a form of autism caused by a tumor-causing gene, is among those in the new study. His parents, Alexandra and Rick Ewing, know he is at risk for tumors in the brain, heart, kidney, skin and eyes. But that bad news was tempered by his eligibility for the clinical trial, which has only just started.
“There is a big difference between us and the rest of the autism community,” Mr. Ewing said. “We have an honest-to-God genetic diagnosis.”
Not everyone agrees that the discovery is so promising. Steven McCarroll, a geneticist at Harvard, notes that autistic children with the cancer gene mutation have “a brain that is failing in many ways.” Autism in these children could be a manifestation of a general brain malfunction, he said, adding, “The fact that autism is one of the many neurological problems that arise in these patients doesn’t necessarily tell us anything penetrating about the social and language deficits that are specific to autism.”
But other scientists who are not involved in the research that produced these findings say the work is changing their understanding of autism and why it develops. Like cancer, autism can involve unregulated growth of cells, in this case neurons in the brain.
Jonathan Sebat, chief of the Center for Molecular Genomics of Neuropsychiatric Diseases at the University of California, San Diego, describes the parallels between cancer and autism as “quite uncanny.”
“We haven’t solved it all; we have only solved a tiny bit,” he added. “But the small bit we solved has been very illuminating.”
It was Dr. Charis Eng, a cancer geneticist at the Cleveland Clinic, who first noticed a surprising incidence of autism in children whose parents had the PTEN mutation (pronounced p-10). Eventually, investigators discovered that the rate of autism was 10 percent, about 10 times what would normally be expected.
At the same time, researchers found that another genetic disorder was even more likely to result in autism. That disorder, tuberous sclerosis, increases the risk for kidney cancer and a type of brain cancer; half of tuberous sclerosis patients had autism.
Although PTEN and tuberous sclerosis genes are not the same, they are part of the same network of genes that put a brake on cell growth. Disabling PTEN or one of the tuberous sclerosis genes releases that brake. One result can be cancer or tumors. Another can be abnormal wiring of nerve fibers in the brain and autism.
Dr. Mustafa Sahin of Boston Children’s Hospital decided to test whether drugs used to treat tumors caused by tuberous sclerosis gene mutations might also treat autism in people with the same mutated genes.
He started with mice, deleting tuberous sclerosis genes in their cerebellums. Nerve fibers in the animals’ brains grew wildly, and the mice had unusual behaviors, reminiscent of autism. They had repetitive movements and groomed themselves constantly, so much that they sometimes rubbed their skin raw. And unlike normal mice, which prefer other mice to an inanimate object, these mice liked a plastic cup just as much.
But rapamycin, which targets the tuberous sclerosis gene and blocks a protein involved in cell division, changed the animals. They no longer compulsively groomed themselves, and they no longer liked the plastic cup as much as a live mouse. The animals did better on tests of learning and memory, and the growth of nerve fibers in their brains was controlled. Now Dr. Sahin is giving a similar drug, everolimus, to autistic children with a tuberous sclerosis gene mutation, asking if it can improve their mental abilities. Richard is among the children. Each child takes the drug or a placebo for six months. The study is scheduled to be completed by December 2014.
While Dr. Eng started with cancer gene mutations and discovered a link to autism, Dr. Eichler, of the University of Washington, started with autism and found a connection to cancer genes.
He focused on what he calls “out of the blue autism,” which occurs with no family history, recruiting 209 families with autistic children.
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Habits of Retirees by Tim Sprinkle
They keep us focused, keep us on task and help us organize the day-to-day tedium of our working lives.
Hawaii-based retiree Rik Rodriguez surfs regularly to keep his mind and body sharp.But habits remain important even when the working stops. In fact, after waiting decades to give up on their full-time careers, many retirees wake up to the realization that they actually need their daily routines more than ever to help them structure and make sense of their suddenly wide-open schedules.
How do they do it? What habits are particularly helpful for today’s retirees? We reached out to our Yahoo! Contributor Network community to find out what habits our retired members rely on and how they help them make the most of their golden years. Several of their responses are shown below.
I Challenge Myself Every Day
“I face it daily. At age 88, being retired for so many years is often challenging. My method of coping is to keep busy, both mentally and physically. Every morning I swim or hike for an hour. Then I attack blogging, my most energizing new routine. Actually, I’ve been a writer all my life, and made quite a good living at it in advertising and public relations. However, most was done on typewriters, and later on desktop computers before the Internet explosion.
“To create an active retirement, I attack the need for mental fitness as I fulfill physical conditioning. It requires work, stretching my mind as I do my body. At my advanced age, it’s often very challenging, but it’s also a lot of fun.” — Ted Sherman, 88
Working Part-Time Is My Key to a Happy Retirement
“Working is a life-long habit — a habit I decided to keep when I retired last year at age 62. Now, however, I work only part-time. I’ve been a substitute teacher since day one of my retirement. Substitute teaching is inherently a part-time job. Workers drawing Social Security in 2013 may earn up to $15,120 annually without reducing their monthly benefits. Subbing ensures that my earnings won’t exceed the annual limit. And, because I’m working, my Social Security benefits keep on increasing. I also maintain ‘active’ employee status in the public school retirement system, and continue to accrue contributions to my pension.
“Substituting connects me to creative, bright students. They ‘keep me on my toes,’ and I share my years of experience with them. There’s a mutual exchange of teaching and learning. Working part-time in retirement brings balance. I have the best of both worlds.” – Susan Durham, 63
A Good Retirement Begins With Friendships
“When I stopped teaching, along with that went the interactions between my students and me and my colleagues and me. I had friends, but not as many as I wanted; an extremely demanding work schedule had meant little time for friends, let alone a family.
“As a single woman, I knew I had to reach out to others. I made sure I had a plan in place to get out with people, make new friends, and to reach back to others in my past to get out and have some fun. I began filling up Fridays with dates for shopping, lunches, an occasional movie, and more. I am a natural hermit, but I knew being solitary was not good for my mental or physical well-being.” – Sandra Snow, 61
Retirement Is All About Attitude
“Although many factors contribute to my successful retirement, being a consistent and dedicated surfer helped me attain many of my retirement goals. Surfing requires focus, dedication and timing to name a few things. Most of us will excel in any endeavor utilizing these three elements. I have found a productive activity that I love and I turned it into a habit. The success of my retirement depended on it.
“Surfing has been my motivation most of my life now, and is something I do several times a week near my home on the Big Island of Hawaii. Staying in good shape is very important to me. Surfing is fun and challenging with many hidden benefits. It most certainly has enhanced my life in more ways that I can tell.” — Rik Rodriguez, 56
Scheduling Time Makes for More Satisfying Retirement Days
“If you have a regular date with a garden club, book club, or just a coffee klatch, those ‘appointments’ give you a daily dose of meaningful moments that are priceless. I make a point every week to send birthday cards, letters, or messages to friends far away in distance, but never in heart. I don’t depend on time for these things to just appear — I plan for it! These remembrances really make a difference to you and the ones you remember!” – Tresa Patterson, 54
Volunteering Makes for a Successful Retirement
“Volunteering gives me the opportunity to meet new interesting and talented people. For example, I currently volunteer as an usher at the Chapman Cultural Center’s David Read Theatre in Spartanburg, SC. The theatre hosts plays, musical entertainers, movies, lectures, etc. The perks of volunteering are that I get to attend the events I usher for free. I have made many new friends, and I am able to learn while I have fun!
“Volunteering at my church also contributes to my happy retirement. I attend Restoration Church in Spartanburg, SC and volunteer as a greeter, serve on the decorating team, and at special events.” – Freida Thomas, 51
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Poor oral health tied to HPV virus by Catherine Saint Louis
People with swollen gums, missing teeth and other signs of poor dental health are more likely to be infected orally with the human papillomavirus, researchers reported on Wednesday.
HPV, a sexually transmitted virus, causes cancers of the cervix, mouth and throat. The new study, published in Cancer Prevention Research, is the first to document a link between the infection and poor oral health, but other experts noted that the research found only an association and relied mostly on self-reported data about oral health. It is too early to say with confidence that brushing and flossing regularly can prevent oral HPV infection, they said.
The finding is a “modest association,” said Aimée R. Kreimer, an epidemiologist at the National Cancer Institute who was not involved in the study. “We don’t know if poor oral health causes HPV infection and would go on to cancer,” she said.
This finding suggests another potential downside to deficient hygiene “because of a possible association between poor to fair oral health and the presence of the human papillomavirus, which in itself is identified with several diseases,” said Dr. Sol Silverman, a professor of oral medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and a spokesman for the American Dental Association.
Researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston reviewed data on both high-risk and low-risk oral HPV infection and oral health in 3,439 adults, ages 30 to 69, participating in the nationally representative 2009-10 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, known as NHANES. The study found that being male, smoking cigarettes, and having multiple oral sex partners increased the likelihood of oral HPV infection, findings similar to those in an earlier analysis of NHANES data.
But after controlling for smoking and the number of oral sex partners, the new study found that self-rated poor oral health was an independent risk for oral HPV infection. The odds of having an oral HPV infection were 55 percent higher among those reporting poor to fair oral health.
Throat cancer caused by HPV is increasing, particularly along middle-aged white men. About 25,000 cases a year are diagnosed in the United States. Many experts believe oral infection with the virus has increased along with the frequency of oral sex.
“What we think might be happening is if you have poor oral health — ulcers, gum inflammation, sores or lesions, any openings in the mouth — that might provide entry for HPV,” said Christine Markham, the second author on the paper and an associate professor of health promotion and behavioral sciences at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. “We don’t have sufficiently strong evidence to demonstrate that conclusively in the study, but that’s our thinking.”
Yet the increase in risk is modest, said Dr. Kreimer, “less than the two- to threefold elevations in risk that cause concern.” And three of the four measures used to assess the participants’ oral health, including the presence of gum disease, were self-reported, a limitation of the study. One measure — number of teeth lost — was reported by dental hygienists.
“It’s the first paper linking self-reported measures of poor oral hygiene and an oral HPV infection,” Dr. Maura L. Gillison, a professor of medicine at Ohio State University, who was not involved in the study. “It’s a strong paper because it’s a first, but does it have public health significance? Should people change their behavior? I would say no.”
Oral cancers caused by HPV are typically found near the tonsils or at the base of the tongue, she added, and it’s hard to see how those regions could be directly affected by periodontal inflammation.
Experts including Dr. Gillison nonetheless called the study an important first step. “Further study — even though it would be expensive and time-consuming — should be considered,” said Dr. Silverman.
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Connie’s comments: Strong immune system, proper hygiene, proper selection of partners, Vit C, D and E, eating citrus and grapefruit and many other holistic healing ways and lifestyles help our mouth be healthy. Open sores are entries for bacteria or any virus.
I use hydrogen peroxide as mouth wash. Dilute 1/3 of 3% H202 in water or add salt and tea tree oil drops in water as your mouth wash. You may also use eucalptus or peppermint essential oil, few drops in glass of water.
Blood tests may ID suicide risk by Chris Kaiser
It may one day be possible to identify and treat those at risk for suicide based on gene expressions of elevated blood biomarkers, researchers suggested.
In a cohort of 42 bipolar patients, the nine who had a dramatic shift from no suicidal thoughts to strong suicidal ideation also had marked increases in levels of SAT1 (spermidine/spermine N1–acetyltransferase 1), as well as other RNA biomarkers, Alexander B. Niculescu III, MD, PhD, director of the Laboratory of Neurophenomics at the Institute of Psychiatric Research at the Indiana University School of Medicine, and colleagues reported online in Molecular Psychiatry.
They validated the findings in a post-mortem analysis of nine age-matched suicides, as well as longitudinally in a group of 46 patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder.
In the longitudinal follow-up of the 46 with psychosis, high blood levels of the biomarkers were correlated with future suicide-related hospitalizations, as well as hospitalizations that had occurred before the blood tests.
Niculescu and colleagues suggested that these markers reflect more than just a current state of high risk, but could be trait markers that correlate with long-term risk.
“Taken together, our results have implications for the understanding of suicide, as well as for the development of objective laboratory tests and tools to track suicidal risk and response to treatment,” they concluded.
To reach their conclusions, the investigators followed the 42 bipolar patients over a 3-year period, taking blood samples and performing a system of genetic and genomic analysis called Convergent Functional Genomics that identified and prioritized the best markers by cross-validation with other lines of evidence.
The strongest biological “signal” associated with suicidal thoughts was the marker SAT1.
“Remarkably, we found SAT1 gene expression levels to be elevated in nine out of nine (100%) subjects who committed suicide that we tested,” researchers wrote.
The increase in the biomarker was at least three standard deviations above the average levels in the high suicidal ideation participants, “which constitutes a very stringent threshold for use as a predictive biomarker.”
In the validation cohort, high levels of SAT1 gene expression were associated with suicidal thoughts, delusions, mood disorders, anxiety, hallucinations, and stress.
Others strong RNA biomarkers discovered and validated include:
- PTEN (phosphatase and tensin homolog)
- MARCKS (myristoylated alanine-rich protein kinase C substrate)
- MAP3K3 (Mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase 3)
The omega-3 docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) signaling pathway stood out as a potential underlying mechanism involved in the biomarkers.
“Low omega-3 levels have been correlated with increased suicidality in human epidemiological studies,” Niculescu and colleagues noted.
They pointed out that SAT1 and 18 other biomarkers identified in the current study had been found to change “in expression by omega-3 treatment in the blood of the circadian clock gene DBP (D-box binding protein)” in mice.
Further, the current study identified DBP as a biomarker that is decreased in high suicidal states, and previous work by these researchers “implicated DBP in mood disorders, psychosis, alcoholism, and anxiety disorders.”
The suicide biomarker PTEN — identified longitudinally and in suicide victims in the current study — had previously been shown to be decreased in mice that lacked DBP. When treated with omega-3 fatty acids, however, the mice reverted back to a normalized phenotype.
Earlier this year, researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital found that bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, ADHD, and major depressive disorder share common genetic underpinnings — despite having different symptoms and disease courses.
A meta-analysis from Italian researchers found that lithium lowered suicide risk in those with mood disorders.
In the study, all participants and suicide victims were male and all but one were white, which could limit the generalizability of the findings. The researchers called for more extensive, normative studies in the population at large.
Patients for the study were recruited from the Indianapolis VA Medical Center, the Indiana University School of Medicine, and various facilities that serve people with mental illnesses in Indiana. The nine suicide victims were obtained through the local Marion County coroner’s office.
Because people who commit suicide are often driven by unknown biological processes, these findings offer hope in identifying those at risk and getting them preventive treatment. — Sanjay Gupta, MD
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Connie’s comments: In utero, our brain is developed with proper nutrients or affected by outside forces such as drugs, and quality of sperm and egg. Outside, we are bombarded by toxins in our diet and environment. Sleeping late, drinking alcohol, combo of drug overdose and other stressors affect our brain. It is known that a mother’s loving care can alter our cells toward favorable growth. But our brain is very much affected by many imbalance in body chemistry from the moment we are conceived to the time we overdose with meds or drugs. Care for our bodies and babies, brain development starts there from breastfeeding to baby massage and child rearing. Our loving care can make a difference but our brain chemicals are the final arbiters of our faith. Take care of our bodies, our brain especially.
———Now hiring financial consultants, work from home, in USA
Please join us on Saturdays 10-11am at 400 oyster pt blvd SSF ste 120 , be a business owner helping families and you then help yourself retire in 7yrs connie 408-854-1883 in USA motherhealth@gmail.com
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We will help you build an income:
$8,400 for 4 personal sales a month
$5,400 for hiring 3 associates who each make 4 sales a month
$13,800 total
This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Veterans Administration.
The authors declared they had no conflict of interest.
Spend less when you retire
Forget what you know about withdrawal rates. The key to making your nest egg last is to spend less money than you earn.
Due to state tax law differences, however, you’ll soon learn that where you live during retirement largely dictates what you spend.
Some states, such as Minnesota and Vermont, impose a hefty tax on retirement income, while California’s top income tax rate is a budget busting 13.3 percent. Others, including New Jersey, have the highest property tax rate in the nation, while 14 states tax Social Security benefits either in part or in full. They are: Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont and West Virginia. (Not all, though, made our list of least tax friendly states for retirees.)
Up-and-Coming Retirement Cities, Around the WorldAlso, the sheer size of the aging baby boomer population has encouraged most states to consider more tax-favorable legislation for seniors, said Kathleen Thies, state tax analyst for CCH tax services firm in Riverwoods, Ill. And some relief programs have already been enacted.
But due to their combination of taxes on ordinary income, pensions, real estate, inherited property and estates, the following 10 states can best be described as hostile territory for retirees.
The list was culled with data collected from CCH, the Tax Foundation, state revenue departments, retirementliving.com and the Federation of Tax Administrators. (Property tax rates, compiled by the Tax Foundation using Census Bureau data, are through calendar year 2011 and reflect the mean property tax as a percentage of mean home value.)
And because tax laws impact retirees differently, depending on their financial circumstances, we did not attempt to rank each state in terms of tax friendliness—or lack thereof. The states are instead presented in alphabetical order.
California
State income tax: 1% – 13.3%
State sales tax: 7.5% (combined state, local rate)
Mean property tax rate as a percentage of mean home value: 0.8%
Property tax ranking: 33
Estate tax: Limited to the federal estate tax collection rate
Inheritance tax: None
The sunny skies of California may be a playground for movie stars and millionaires, but retired residents should take their money and run.
The so-called Golden State, where fortune cookies, blue jeans and Apple computers were invented, levies one of the nation’s highest personal income tax rates. Its tax exemption for Social Security benefits is little comfort, given that most other retirement income gets taxed in full.
And property taxes are assessed at 100 percent of the home’s value, up to a maximum of 1 percent of the home’s cash value. That can deliver a serious dent to your standard of living. Median home prices for new and existing houses and condominiums reached $340,000, with high real estate prices in cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.
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Now hiring part time financial consultants and direct selling sales (anti-aging), computer and people savvy. Calling all former Cisco and Wells Fargo employees and retirees from all types of industries. 408-854-1883 ; motherhealth@gmail.com
———Now hiring financial consultants, work from home, in USA
Please join us on Saturdays 10-11am at 400 oyster pt blvd SSF ste 120 , be a business owner helping families and you then help yourself retire in 7yrs connie 408-854-1883 in USA motherhealth@gmail.com
Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes , 5.4 million Alzheimer’s cases in USA
High sugar consumption is implicated in the disease of the brain, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. While the correlation of dementia risk, and specifically Alzheimer’s disease, with diabetes has been established, this new finding throws a much wider net in terms of defining an at risk population for an incurable brain disorder. But despite the potential public health impact of these findings, this correlation received almost no media attention.
The Unites States has now been granted the distinction of ranking first in terms of increased number of deaths from neurological diseases including dementia. In a recent report in the journal Public Health, Prof. Colin Pritchard and colleagues from Britain’s Bournemouth University evaluated causes of death in the 10 largest Western countries between 1979 and 2010. During that time period, deaths in America related to brain conditions rose an astounding 66% in men and 92% in women.
These compelling statistics are supported by what we’ve recently learned about monetary expenditures for caring for dementia-afflicted patients. In a recent RAND study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, costs for dementia care in 2010 were estimated to be as high as $200 billion, roughly twice that expended for heart disease and almost triple what was spent on treating cancer patients.
These figures, as well as the staggering statistics that in America there are currently 5.4 million Alzheimer’s disease patients with that number poised to double by the year 2030, provide enticement for pharmaceutical companies to develop drug strategies to cure or at least slow the inexorable mental decline characteristic of this disease. As yet, they have failed, miserably. Indeed, as reported in a recent issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, the latest and perhaps most promising drug treatment for Alzheimer’s disease not only failed to halt the disease, but actually worsened functional ability while increasing the risk for infection and skin cancers.
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Connie’s comments: Add fiber and grains in your diets. Cut on sugar and processed foods. Eat fruits and their skin if you have a sweet tooth, fruits rich in fiber. Fiber encapsulates sugar and fats out of your body. Detox with alkaline diet and water.
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Stay at home mothers as business owners and network marketers
Stay-at-home mothers, mothers working in high-tech, and mothers juggling a corporate job and raising children all met last night Los Gatos to help bring new sales consultants to the business.
You will hear many stories how they find satisfaction in building their own business with lost cost of entry, less than $1000. A business woman told her story how she invested in her own start up business in the tune of $250k and the business died and all what is left to her is a chair.
Two mothers of triplets, raised their boys and managed the flexible home based business and built a team of more than 100 in a year’s time.
Thanks to being a business owner for less with full field support, these women are now business owners and building a team to duplicate themselves and leverage time, people and money.
Join us to be a business owner in the business of helping others maximize wealth and minimize taxes in 2014. Call Connie 408-854-1883 ; motherhealth@gmail.com
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In the book of Robert Kiyosaki, The Business of the 21st Century, we are reminded that those who dream big and is a network marketer helping others achieve their dreams are successful because they are business owners who found a business that does not require big cash outlays and allow them unlimited potential to make money, globally, leveraging time, people and money. Now the masses with or without education are in equal playing field, getting rich like the rich people do. When we all do, it is because we have educated ourselves to have a financial IQ to leverage our wealth and be a business owner leveraging people, time and money in a network marketing business, the business of the 21st century.
Join me as I am hiring more network marketers in the area of financial service in the USA. Bayarea business introduction meetings at 1313 N Milpitas Blvd every Tuesday at 7:30pm and 10am at 400 Oyster Point Blvd, SSF, Ste 120 every Saturdays. Call Connie 408-854-1883 or motherhealth@gmail.com www.pfaonline.com
If you are open to opportunities and wanted to work whenever and wherever you are globally, there is a business for you. If you know a friend or family who needs a part time job or a business that can bring them financial freedom and tax benefits, contact Connie.
It is time to make a change, accept that we are all capable of dreaming big and dreaming a business with no limits to how much we can make and in the end we are helping each other achieve our dreams and free up our time to do the things we want to do.
A message on Love by Curtis J. Milhaupt
The calendar entry for Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2011, reads simply, “Love One Another.” My wife, Terry, handed me the entry, a leaf torn from a pad, that morning. A drawing beneath the caption depicts a late middle-aged couple embracing as they walk down the beach, eyes sparkling, mouths agape, sharing a hearty laugh. The sun is setting behind them, throwing glitter across the water. Since Terry gave it to me nearly two years ago, that calendar page has remained on my desk in our bedroom, placed so that I see it every time I pass by.
I’m not exactly sure why I saved that particular entry, of the many given to me over the years by Terry, a lover of pithy sayings. Perhaps it was the powerful simplicity of the message. Or perhaps it was the promise it represented: golden years shared with a loving companion. This idea was becoming more poignant as middle age set in and Conrad, our only child, entered high school. Seeing the drawing sometimes made the bittersweet foretaste of empty-nesthood more palatable.
Or perhaps I saved it because coincidentally, on that particular day, we were headed to Hawaii, Terry’s home state, still filled with family and childhood friends. Walking along the beach was one of our favorite things to do, both as a couple and as a family. Waking early in the fog of jet lag, Terry, Conrad and I would buy takeout breakfast at Zippy’s and crouch at the water’s edge to eat as the sun rose over Kailua Bay near Terry’s childhood home. Walking along the beach, feeling the cool, wet sand under our feet as the sun warmed our faces, we were happy and grateful and content.
These days, a small, silver religious medal lies atop that calendar entry on my desk. Terry was wearing it last fall on the day she took her own life, the victim of a devastating depression that gripped her out of nowhere and pulled her into a darkness from which she felt there was no escape.
Her illness was a menopausal version of a terrifying episode of postpartum depression she suffered after Conrad was born. Terry once said the only thing that saved her during that first episode was the maternal instinct — knowing that her baby needed her in order to survive. In a sense, Conrad’s infant vulnerability kept his mother alive through that ordeal. This time, Terry became submerged in a deep melancholia that doctors later said may have been brought on or aggravated by the hormonal changes of menopause. Although she was receiving treatment and was about to see a specialist in women’s mental health issues, Terry became convinced that Conrad and I would be better off without her — without a mother and wife stricken by an unbearable, invisible weight pressing down on her heart. This state of mind, unfathomable to healthy people, is a common symptom of major depression, as William Styron’s wrenching first-person account, “Darkness Visible,” makes clear. Cancer of the spirit, as insidious as any of the varieties that attack the flesh, stole a woman who embodied the radiance and beauty of her island home.
Walking past that calendar entry now, staggered by a wave of grief, I feel as if the couple’s laughter is mocking me. Those joyous cartoon characters strolling arm in arm along the beach appear to be a cruel caricature of my lost future.
In better moments, the whimsy of the drawing reminds me of the wonderful serendipity of our own romance: a scruffy college sophomore from rural Wisconsin meeting an enchanting 21-year-old woman from Hawaii in front of a train station in Tokyo. The aging cartoon couple calls to mind the nearly 30 years of life Terry and I shared after that first encounter, years full of travel (25 countries together, by my count), professional striving (mostly my own) and the day-to-day challenges of child rearing and household life, punctuated by an occasional triumph, like Terry’s completion of her Ph.D dissertation in art history after years as a full-time mother. Our marriage had the typical imperfections of any deep relationship forged over time through a continuous process of negotiation and compromise. We knew disappointments and doldrums. But across the decades, we built something truly worthy of celebrating with an embrace and shared laughter in the sunset.
I plan to keep that calendar entry right where it is on the desk in my bedroom, for as long as it lasts. As my son and I adapt to the new configuration of our family, and as I try to envision a future through the ashes of my plans for the “golden years,” that scrap of paper reminds me of something else, uplifting and joyous — the most beautiful of scripture passages, recited at countless weddings throughout the ages, including our own: Love endures all things. Love never ends.
Curtis J. Milhaupt is a professor at Columbia Law School.
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Vision loss is tied to lack of sleep
Vision loss is tied to lack of sleep. Lose weight and still be healthy.
At my age, my regular sleeping aid includes melatonin, calcium and magnesium and valerian. Young ones sleep better than older ones with their higher melatonin levels. Sleeping past 11pm is hard on our liver. Our eyes will show it when we don’t get enough sleep and half of us, older adults, in the world are not getting enough sleep. Feed your brain and you are also feeding your eyes, since the nutrients needed for both are the same.
I was sleeping well yesterday because in the morning I prepared a warm water with one boiled egg, no hormone and antioxidants at
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A growing body of evidence indicates that increasing leucine intake can have multiple benefits. It provides an important building block for muscle protein, activates key events in the complex process of protein synthesis, augments weight loss, improves body composition, and corrects metabolic disturbances such as elevated glucose and cholesterol levels..
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