More Depressed Women?

 Many brain abnormalities, such as Schizophrenia, Alzheimer's Disease, Autism, and other all have the common link, Glutamate. Glutamate is a neurotransmitter that is located in the brain. Females that have depression, have been discovered to have a higher rate with the Glutamate receptors, than males with depression. This study that was published by Molecular Psychiatry, observed males and females with depression and thoughts of suicide. In this study, it was shown that females with depression would have the "biological markers" that could easily distinguish them being high risk for suicide. "More than 41,000 people die by suicide each year in the United States...It's the second leading cause of death in people aged 15-34. Suicide claims a life every 14 minutes in the U.S. ... Over 90 percent of the people who take their lives suffer from mental illness, predominantly depression"

Depression is a very strong concept people seem to misunderstand. People feel sad and claim to be depressed. Now knowing that its something the brain has to deal with and "fix it" within itself. I find it very interesting how people can misunderstand something so internal and personal. 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150730172348.htm

Alzheimer's Disease can be predicted by Brain Plaque

The presence of beta-amyloid plaque in brains can help predict who will develop and who has Alzheimer's disease. According to data of about 9,500 people, amyloid can appear 20 to 30 years before signs of dementia ApoE4 gene, which increases the risk of the disease, speeds up amyloid buildup. With the help from amyloid screening, it can identify people for trials of prescriptions to prevent the disease. The results from these trials were insufficient because most brains were already damaged from dementia or they do not have the disease. According to Dr. Samuel Gandy, an Alzheimer's researcher at Mount Sinai Hospital, amyloid screening can be expensive and isn't covered by insurance, but most "can feel fairly confident that amyloid is due to Alzheimer's." He also said that if there were any medications that prevent the disease, they must be safe since the findings of amyloid could appear as early as 30 years old. The researchers examined many studies analyzing how dementia is linked to amyloid, resulting in the findings that, according to Dr. Ossenkoppele, the ApoE4 gene had a bigger effect than some people expected. "Even when people had one copy of a rarer ApoE2 gene that protects against Alzheimer's, they were still at high risk of having amyloid if they had the ApoE4 gene.

I found this article very informative and interesting. My grandfather, who passed away about 10 years ago, had Alzheimer's disease and it is good to know now that there are people working in this field to find a cure or help prevent this disease. With people working hard, there can be a cure or prevention for every disease. 

Exercising During Pregnancy Can Prevent Alzheimers

Recent studies have shown that pregnant women who exercise regularly can help prevent neurodegenerative diseases to their unborn child. Prenatal exercise improves brain plasticity. It also decreases toxic protein deposits, inflammation and oxidative stress. These effects ward off neurodegenerative diseases. Neurodegenerative diseases include Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, and Huntington's. This gives pregnant women another reason to work out.

Pregnant women should exercise anyway in order to prevent many things not just neurodegenerative diseases. But this just gives one more reason to do it. We do not really know if it is cmpletely proven to help yet but it couldn't hurt. Mice have been tested to see the effects but in about fifty or sixty years we will be able to see if it really prevents the diseases. In the mean time though, I think women should exercise while pregnant.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-09/foas-pww092611.php

Grasping for Any Way to Prevent Alzheimer’s

While reading this article about Alzheimer’s disease that was published in the New York Times I became mad and decided that this article should have never been published in the first place. Alzheimer’s is a mysterious and sad disease to get and even more so to watch a loved one die from. The article talked about a new study, by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, estimated how many Alzheimer’s cases might be attributable to certain behaviors or conditions: physical inactivity, smoking, depression, low education, hypertension, obesity and diabetes.
The part in this article that pissed me off the most was where they said… “The operative word was “could.” As the researchers pointed out, there is not yet scientific proof that any of these risk factors in fact cause Alzheimer’s. Only if they are shown to do so could the new analysis be considered a practical recipe for preventing the disease.”… also ““These things are not definitive,” said one author, Dr. Kristine Yaffe, a professor of psychiatry, neurology and epidemiology. “We’re assuming that these are sort of causally related to the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s, but unless you have a great trial, you just don’t know.” … but the best part of this article is when they talk about the trial studies and they say “Evidence for or against any other causal factor was poor, often because studies were small, used vague or changing definitions, or did not rigorously monitor what subjects were doing.” Really?? Your not even watching the patients…why bother having a study?
Nobody knows how or why this disease happens but for my Nanny’s sake who died from Alzheimer’s in 2008 and had none of these “factors”, I hope the research to find a cure for Alzheimer’s is better than what this article is portraying. Especially since it is on the rise and I hope many families don’t have to go threw what I did…until then my family will keep donating and I hope researchers find a cure soon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/health/26alzheimer.html?ref=science
http://www.alzfdn.org/?gclid=COrlyYDJpKoCFeVx5Qodd2uOYw