What a great headline! Always refreshing to receive optimistic news for a change from the daily paper. It certainly caught my eye because the disease runs in my family. My father, my grandfather, my great grandmother, uncles, aunts, great uncles, were all plagued with some form of dementia. We call it "the family curse." As a child, I heard it referred to it as "senility".
The term senile refers to losing one's mind. However, there are more accurate terms which refer to the actual type of senility or dementia. Large strokes and smaller strokes referred to as TIA's (mini strokes), vascular dementia, Lewy Body disease, Alzheimer's are a few causes of dementia.
Fortunately, great strides are being made with researchers honing in on certain genes and identifying those genes that are most likely to cause plaque on the brain. Recently, some scientists in Iceland took that gene research even farther and discovered a gene that fortunate folks ( 1 in 100,000) have, which deters Alzheimer's. These are the people who will almost certainly not come down with the mind wasting disease.
http://www.wtsp.com/news/article/263580/81/Genetic-mutation-may-protect-against-Alzheimers
Medications are being created and tested that will actually reverse brain plaque and put an end to Alzheimer's Disease. A medical breakthrough that will change people's lives forever so that families like mine will not have to dread the family curse.
I am not yet in the target range for participating in research at my local university but in a few years I will be of that 55 + demographic and will be sure to contact the Centre on Aging at the University of Victoria so they can track my predisposition to memory problems like those of my forefathers.
There are many studies currently being conducted and participants are needed. Some of the requirements are that you are in good health with no history of head injury or stroke in the last year. If you're interested in what the Centre on Aging is doing right now, go to http://www.coag.uvic.ca/ and click on the "opportunities" tab.
I love sharing positive news with you and being the news junkie that I am you can be sure that there will be more of it in the blogs to come. Please sign up to be a follower of my blog and you will be notified whenever I post a new entry. It's easy to do, just click on "subscribe by email" at the bottom of this installment (you should see it near the comments section) or "follow by email" at the side of this installment.
In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying your summer.
"In the garden of thy heart, plant naught but the rose of love"
~Baha'u'llah
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