Vitamin E may help slow functional decline in people with Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study.

Scientists from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York conducted a double-blind randomized clinical trial involving 613 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease. Subjects were either given fat-soluble vitamin E or a placebo, and the effects were examined over a period of five years.

The findings, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that patients who were given vitamin E demonstrated a slower Alzheimer’s disease progression than did patients who were given a placebo. The vitamin, however, did not seem to improve memory or cognitive function.

The researchers said their study suggests that vitamin E can be recommended as an effective and inexpensive treatment strategy for Alzheimer’s patients.

NEXT: Food choices affected by what others eat

Sourced from: Science Daily, Vitamin E May Delay Decline in Mild-To-Moderate Alzheimer’s Disease

Thanks to the end of Prohibition and a boom in car sales, drunk driving had become a fast-growing problem in America in the 1930s. But on this New Year’s Eve, police in Indianapolis, Indiana went out armed with a new weapon to fight against people who had gotten behind the wheel after having too much to drink.

It’s a contraption called a “drunkometer”  and it’s the invention of an Indiana University chemist named Rolla Harger. He had been working on the device since the early 1930s and had patented it two years earlier. The concept behind the drunkometer was pretty basic. Drivers suspected of being drunk were asked to breathe into a rubber balloon, which was attached to a tube of purple liquid—a  weak solution of potassium permanganate in sulphuric acid.

If there was alcohol on their breath, the chemical solution changed color–the darker it got, the more alcohol they had in their system.  From the shade of the liquid, the cops could use a simple equation to estimate the alcohol level in a person’s bloodstream.  Previously, the only way police could check a driver’s alcohol level was to get a blood or urine sample; Neither was a very practical option on the roadside.  While the drunkometer looked a bit like a mini chemistry set, it was portable, able to fit into a small suitcase.

Harger made the device as simple as possible so that judges and juries would understand how it worked and police officers could easily be trained to use it. He also made the drunkometer hard to beat. Experiments showed that no illness affected the result, and that nothing a person might eat - garlic, cloves, strong onions - would make any difference. Once  police started using it, the drunkometer was found to have another advantage. A dramatic change in the color of the liquid could often make people admit how much they had drunk.

Sometimes Harger would ride along with the police to see how his invention was being used.  What he discovered was that a lot more people were driving drunk than he ever imagined.

The drunkometer was used by police departments all over the country until the 1950s when it was replaced by the breathalyzer, invented by another Indiana University professor, Robert Borkenstein. The breathalyzer is a much smaller and more sophisticated device that uses infrared spectroscopy to measure blood alcohol levels.

High blood pressure is more prevalent among people living in the southeastern states of the U.S., according to a new study. And scientists are particularly concerned that these rates have remained relatively high for more than a decade.

Researchers from Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee analyzed a database with health information in the Southeast between 2002 and 2009. They compared data between white and black adults of similar income and education levels and found that almost 60 percent of the study participants had high blood pressure. Researchers also found that the black adults were twice as likely to have high blood pressure.

The findings showed that the biggest factor for high blood pressure was obesity, which quadrupled the risk for high blood pressure. Other factors included high cholesterol, diabetes and a family history of heart disease. Researchers of the study said these findings are important because it emphasizes the need to implement more effective strategies in order to reduce high blood pressure rates. Physicians and patients alike should be more proactive in monitoring and treating high blood pressure, they said.

Southeastern states include the following: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas and Kentucky.

NEXT: First “drunkometer”: Dec. 31, 1938

Sourced from: Reuters, High rates of high blood pressure persist in US Southeast

People with high cholesterol levels may be more at risk for cognitive disorders, such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, according to new research.

Researchers from UC Berkeley, UC Davis and USC recruited 74 participants with an average age of 78 and analyzed the relationship between cholesterol and amyloid plaques—abnormal protein build-up which is a mark of Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists found that the people with higher levels of LDL, or “bad” cholesterol, had more amyloid plaques in their brains.

None of the study’s subjects were diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. More than half, however, were found to have mild cognitive impairment, which can sometimes lead to Alzheimer’s.

The study, published in the journal JAMA Neurology, suggests that there is a link between cholesterol levels and cognitive decline, but scientists remain uncertain about the pathways through which one affects the other.

NEXT: Rates of hypertension remain high in Southeast U.S.

Sourced from: LA Times, Cholesterol and Alzheimer’s disease link strengthens in study

High levels of alcohol consumption can damage the consumer’s DNA, according to a new study aimed at college students and young adults.

Researchers examined the effects of alcohol on two groups of healthy adults between ages 18 and 23. One group drank an average of 1.5 liters—approximately 50 ounces—of alcoholic beverages every weekend, while the other group did not consume any. Using a process involving blood cells called the comet test, scientists were able to examine the effects of alcohol consumption on DNA damage.

The findings, published in the journal Alcohol, showed that the group that consumed alcohol had more than five times the amount of DNA damage than the group that abstained from alcohol. The damage to the drinkers’ DNA was not considered excessive, but researchers said their study raises concerns because the young adults should not have had any DNA damage after partaking in alcohol consumption for only a few years. The study is the first of its kind to provide scientific evidence that early stages of alcohol abuse are connected to health damage at a molecular level.

NEXT: (Infographic) 10 reasons to strength train

Sourced from: Medical News Today, Our food choices are influenced by social norms, study suggests