UCLA study: Non-drug treatment may reverse Alzheimer's

Alzheimer's disease was officially recognized a hundred years ago, but there's still no effective treatment for it. Now researchers at UCLA say they've developed a program that shows for the first time memory loss being reversed.

It's not a drug; it's not a procedure; it is a novel, comprehensive and personal approach to treating memory loss associated with Alzheimer's. UCLA researchers spell out exactly what can be done to reverse what the disease does to the brain.

In the report provided by UCLA, Dr. Dale E. Bredesen explains how Alzheimer's is a complex disease affected by sleep, diet, even exercise.

"These all -- and other things -- all contribute to this critical balance in plasticity," said Bredesen.

Ten memory-loss patients, some with brain-scan-confirmed patterns of Alzheimer's, participated in a small UCLA trial called MEND (Metabolic Enhancement for NeuroDegeneration).

In the UCLA protocol, patients made dramatic lifestyle changes. They avoided simple carbs, gluten and processed foods. They increased their fish intake, took yoga and meditated. They were instructed to take melatonin, get adequate sleep, incorporate vitamin B-12, vitamin D-3 and fish oil.

Within six months, nine patients saw a noticeable improvement in memory. One patient, who was in the late stages of Alzheimer's, did not show improvement.

UCLA researchers say the findings suggest at least early on, changing a person's metabolic processes can bring back memory and cognitive function.

Six of the patients of the patients in the study who had to discontinue working were all able to return to their jobs. Study authors say some patients were followed up to two and a half years and the memory improvements remained.

Plans are underway to do larger studies on this therapeutic program.

For more information on the study: Reversal of cognitive decline: A novel therapeutic program

Sleep May Strengthen Long-term Immune System Memories

Over a century ago, scientists demonstrated that sleep supports the retention of memories of facts and events. Later studies have shown that slow-wave sleep, often referred to as deep sleep, is important for transforming fragile, recently formed memories into stable, long-term memories.

Now researchers propose that deep sleep may also strengthen immunological memories of previously encountered pathogens.

“While it has been known for a long time that sleep supports long-term memory formation in the psychological domain, the idea that long-term memory formation is a function of sleep effective in all organismic systems is in our view entirely new,” says senior author Jan Born of the University of Tuebingen. “We consider our approach toward a unifying concept of biological long-term memory formation, in which sleep plays a critical role, a new development in sleep research and memory research.”

The immune system “remembers” an encounter with a bacteria or virus by collecting fragments from the bug to create memory T cells, which last for months or years and help the body recognize a previous infection and quickly respond.

Gist Information

These memory T cells appear to abstract “gist information” about the pathogens, as only T cells that store information about the tiniest fragments ever elicit a response. The selection of gist information allows memory T cells to detect new pathogens that are similar, but not identical, to previously encountered bacteria or viruses.

Studies in humans have shown that long-term increases in memory T cells are associated with deep slow-wave sleep on the nights after vaccination.

Taken together, the findings support the view that slow-wave sleep contributes to the formation of long-term memories of abstract, generalized information, which leads to adaptive behavioral and immunological responses.

The obvious implication is that sleep deprivation could put your body at risk.

“If we didn’t sleep, then the immune system might focus on the wrong parts of the pathogen,” Born says. “For example, many viruses can easily mutate some parts of their proteins to escape from immune responses. If too few antigen-recognizing cells [the cells that present the fragments to T cells] are available, then they might all be needed to fight off the pathogen.

In addition to this, there is evidence that the hormones released during sleep benefit the crosstalk between antigen-presenting and antigen-recognizing cells, and some of these important hormones could be lacking without sleep.”

Born says that future research should examine what information is selected during sleep for storage in long-term memory, and how this selection is achieved.

In the end, this research could have important clinical implications.

“In order to design effective vaccines against HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis, which are based on immunological memory, the correct memory model must be available,” Born says. “It is our hope that by comparing the concepts of neuronal and immunological memory, a model of immunological memory can be developed which integrates the available experimental data and serves as a helpful basis for vaccine development.”

Article originally appeared on sciencebeta.com