Beer belly ‘doubles dementia risk’

January 25th, 2010 more images more images more images more images More blood pressure worry: It's linked to dementia WASHINGTON — If the cardiologist's warnings don't scare you, consider this: Controlling blood pressure just might be the best protection yet known against dementia. In a flurry of new research, scientists scanned people's brains to show hypertension fuels a kind of scarring linked to later development of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.

January 16th, 2010 WASHINGTON - Women with high blood pressure (BP) may be at a greater risk of dementia later in life, says a new finding in the US. "Hypertension is very common in the US and many other countries and can lead to serious health problems," said Lewis Kuller, professor of epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.

December 11th, 2009 more imagesWASHINGTON - Drinking alcoholic beverages is associated with a 30 percent increased risk of breast cancer recurrence, says a new study. According to the new Kaiser Permanente study, post-menopausal or overweight women may be most susceptible to the effects of alcohol on recurrence.

November 7th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A simple blood test could soon determine if a women is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, long before any signs of illness, concludes a new study. A thesis from the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, found that middle-aged women with high levels of a specific amino acid in their blood are twice as likely to suffer from Alzheimer's many years later-a discovery that could lead to a new and simple way of determining who is at risk much before any symptoms of the disease.

October 28th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Older patients with dementia are diagnosed with flu less frequently, have shorter hospital stays, and have a fifty percent higher rate of death than those without the disorder, a new study has revealed. "The increased mortality of older patients with dementia hospitalized for flu may be indicative of inadequacies in health care quality and accessibility.

October 14th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study, conducted by researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, has warned that taking medications that reduce or block the actions of folic acid during the first trimester of pregnancy increase the risk that the growing baby will develop abnormalities. For the study, the researchers obtained medication data from pregnant mothers registered at Clalit HMO, Southern District, and drew information from 84,832 babies born at Soroka University Medical Center in Beer-Sheva, Israel.

October 13th, 2009 WASHINGTON - People, who go on to have Alzheimer's disease (AD), lose many cognitive abilities, much before they actually succumb to dementia caused by the neurodegenerative disorder, a new study has revealed. Researchers at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, have said that in such people, declines of thinking and learning skills, including visuospatial skills needed to perceive relationships between objects, may decline years prior to a clinical diagnosis of AD.

October 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - A medication that is commonly prescribed to treat Alzheimer's disease can increase a person's risk of being hospitalised for a potentially serious condition called bradycardia, say researchers. Experts from St.

September 20th, 2009 Report: 35 million-plus worldwide have dementiaWASHINGTON — More than 35 million people around the world are living with Alzheimer's disease or other types of dementia, says the most in-depth attempt yet to assess the brain-destroying illness — and it's an ominous forecast as the population grays. The new count is about 10 percent higher than what scientists had predicted just a few years ago, because earlier research underestimated Alzheimer's growing impact in developing countries.

September 15th, 2009 WASHINGTON - People with mild cognitive impairment, who have problems in performing routine activities, are likely to progress quickly to dementia, suggests a new study. Mild cognitive impairment is recognized as a risk factor for dementia.

September 15th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Using a pioneering technology, surgeons at The Methodist Hospital in Houston are removing gall bladders through a single incision in the belly button to prevent scarring for patients with gall stones. In fact, the breakthrough technique called single incision laparoscopic surgery (SILS) also ensures that patients undergo less pain during recovery.

September 11th, 2009 WASHINGTON - If you are part of a social group, your are more likely to stay away from conditions like stroke, dementia and even the common cold. Well, new research by researchers at the Universities of Exeter and Queensland, Australia, suggests that membership of social groups has a positive impact on health and well-being.

September 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The belief that healthy older brains are substantially smaller than younger brains has been deemed incorrect by Dutch researchers. The authors suggest that previous findings may have overestimated atrophy and underestimated normal size for the older brain.

September 2nd, 2009 LONDON - Five pints of beer in an evening can have greater effect on men's waist size than a regular tipple, suggests a British study. The researchers found that men who binged had a waist size 2.3 inches (6cm) bigger than men who drank the same overall amount of alcohol but spread it out across the week.

August 29th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Johns Hopkins researchers have found that infections with a particular subtype of HIV increase people's likelihood of developing dementia, compared to infections with other subtypes. Writing about their findings in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, the researchers claimed that theirs is the first study to have shown that the specific type of HIV has any effect on cognitive impairment, one of the most common complications of uncontrolled HIV infection.