MRI and Alzheimer’s disease

Researchers used the MRIs to predict the ratio of two biomarkers for the diseases – the proteins total tau and beta-amyloid – in the cerebrospinal fluid. Cerebrospinal fluid analyses remain the most accurate method for predicting the disease cause, but requires a more invasive lumbar puncture. “Using this novel method, we obtain a single biologically meaningful value from analyzing MRI data in this manner and then we can derive a probabilistic estimate of the likelihood of Alzheimer’s or FTLD,” said the study’s lead author, Corey McMillan, PhD, of the Perelman School of Medicine and Frontotemporal Degeneration Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

Using the MRI prediction method was 75 percent accurate at identifying the correct diagnosis in both patients with pre-confirmed disease diagnoses and those with biomarker levels confirmed by lumbar punctures, which shows comparable overlap between accuracy of the MRI and lumbar puncture methods. “For those remaining 25 percent of cases that are borderline, a lumbar puncture testing spinal fluid may provide a more accurate estimate of the pathological diagnosis.”

Source:http://westmorelandtimes.com/news/2012/12/mri-can-screen-patients-for-alzheimers-disease-using-penn-designed-model-31121201112402016401/

Drug cost $50 to $28,000

THE doctor was dumbfounded: a drug that used to cost $50 was now selling for $28,000 for a 5-milliliter vial. 

The physician, Dr. Ladislas Lazaro IV, remembered occasionally prescribing this anti-inflammatory, named H.P. Acthar Gel, for gout back in the early 1990s. Then the drug seemed to fade from view. Dr. Lazaro had all but forgotten about it, until a sales representative from a company called Questcor Pharmaceuticals appeared at his office and suggested that he try it for various rheumatologic conditions. 

 Source:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/30/business/questcor-finds-profit-for-acthar-drug-at-28000-a-vial.html?_r=0

$200 billion will be paid for Alzheimer's care

In 2012, the direct costs of caring for those with Alzheimer’s or other dementias to American society will total an estimated $200 billion.

Average per person Medicare payments for an older person with Alzheimer’s or other dementias are nearly 3 times higher than for an older person without these conditions. Medicaid payments are 19 times higher. These costs will only continue to soar in the coming years given the projected rapidly escalating prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease as the baby boomers age.
Unless something is done, the care costs of Alzheimer’s and other dementias will soar from $200 billion this year to a projected $1.1 trillion (in today’s dollars) by 2050. This dramatic rise includes a 500 percent increase in combined Medicare and Medicaid spending.

Source:http://www.alz.org/documents_custom/2012_facts_figures_fact_sheet.pdf

The Starving Brain cause of Alzheimer's

"A reduction in cerebral glucose utilization is one of the earliest signs of
Alzheimer's disease. Although the exact cause of this reduction is not known,
gathering evidence suggests that it is part of a complex metabolic adaptation to
oxidative stress during which glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation are turned
down, glucose metabolism is shifted to the pentose phosphate pathway
to generate antioxidant reducing factors such as nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide
phosphate (NADPH) and glutathione, and the gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)
shunt is activated to provide glutamate as an alternate source of energy.

In the face of these adaptive metabolic changes, the Alzheimer brain runs short
of energy and begins to digest itself.

Evidence is presented that gammahydroxybutyrate, a natural product of the GABA
shunt, can provide the necessary energy, carbon, and antioxidant power and that
its use may be able to delay the onset and progress of Alzheimer's disease. "

 Source:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/22571985/