Lucille
10-14-2013, 01:57 PM
Take your coconut oil (http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/health/local-doctor-says-coconut-oil-helps-reduce-symptoms-of-alzheimers-disease) no matter how you test.
Cheap Alzheimer's test made from peanut butter and ruler, researchers report
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57606985/cheap-alzheimers-test-made-from-peanut-butter-and-ruler-researchers-report/
Alzheimer's disease is difficult to diagnose before symptoms start showing up, because there is no single test that can definitively determine whether a person has the degenerative brain disease.
Could a scoop of peanut butter and a ruler become that elusive test?
That's what researchers at the University of Florida's McKnight Brain Institute Center for Smell and Taste are hoping. They found patients with early-stage Alzheimer's disease had more difficulty smelling peanut butter held at short distances from their nose than people without the disease.
"At the moment, we can use this test to confirm diagnosis," graduate student Jennifer Stamps, who led the research, said in a statement. "But we plan to study patients with mild cognitive impairment to see if this test might be used to predict which patients are going to get Alzheimer's disease."
[...]
Stamps was under the tutelage of Dr. Kenneth Heilman, a distinguished professor of neurology, when she noticed his patients had not been tested for their sense of smell. According to the graduate student's research, the ability to smell is associated with the first cranial nerve -- a set of nerves on the brain's surface -- called the "olfactory nerve." The olfactory nerve is often one of the first things to be affected in cognitive decline, even before memory loss, she pointed out.
[...]
For the study, researchers took a tablespoon of peanut butter and a metric ruler, and asked more than 90 people with either mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's, other forms of dementia or no neurological problems, to close their eyes and mouth, and block one nostril. The researchers then moved a peanut butter container one centimeter at a time up the ruler until the patient could detect the odor. The experiment was repeated again 90 seconds later with the other nostril.
The researchers were blinded to whether subjects had already been diagnosed with early stage Alzheimer's.
[...]
The study showed all 18 patients with early-stage Alzheimer's had trouble smelling the peanut butter with their left nostril until it was an average of 10 centimeters closer to their nose than their test with the right nostril. Patients at the clinic who had other forms of non-Alzheimer's dementia did not show this discrepancy in smelling ability, or had a worse right nostril than the left.
Of the 24 patients with MCI, 10 had left nostril impairment and 14 did not, which suggests the former group might go on to develop Alzheimer's. The researchers warned more studies are needed to fully understand the implications.
h/t http://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/ClaireWolfe/2013/10/14/monday-links-22/
Cheap Alzheimer's test made from peanut butter and ruler, researchers report
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57606985/cheap-alzheimers-test-made-from-peanut-butter-and-ruler-researchers-report/
Alzheimer's disease is difficult to diagnose before symptoms start showing up, because there is no single test that can definitively determine whether a person has the degenerative brain disease.
Could a scoop of peanut butter and a ruler become that elusive test?
That's what researchers at the University of Florida's McKnight Brain Institute Center for Smell and Taste are hoping. They found patients with early-stage Alzheimer's disease had more difficulty smelling peanut butter held at short distances from their nose than people without the disease.
"At the moment, we can use this test to confirm diagnosis," graduate student Jennifer Stamps, who led the research, said in a statement. "But we plan to study patients with mild cognitive impairment to see if this test might be used to predict which patients are going to get Alzheimer's disease."
[...]
Stamps was under the tutelage of Dr. Kenneth Heilman, a distinguished professor of neurology, when she noticed his patients had not been tested for their sense of smell. According to the graduate student's research, the ability to smell is associated with the first cranial nerve -- a set of nerves on the brain's surface -- called the "olfactory nerve." The olfactory nerve is often one of the first things to be affected in cognitive decline, even before memory loss, she pointed out.
[...]
For the study, researchers took a tablespoon of peanut butter and a metric ruler, and asked more than 90 people with either mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's, other forms of dementia or no neurological problems, to close their eyes and mouth, and block one nostril. The researchers then moved a peanut butter container one centimeter at a time up the ruler until the patient could detect the odor. The experiment was repeated again 90 seconds later with the other nostril.
The researchers were blinded to whether subjects had already been diagnosed with early stage Alzheimer's.
[...]
The study showed all 18 patients with early-stage Alzheimer's had trouble smelling the peanut butter with their left nostril until it was an average of 10 centimeters closer to their nose than their test with the right nostril. Patients at the clinic who had other forms of non-Alzheimer's dementia did not show this discrepancy in smelling ability, or had a worse right nostril than the left.
Of the 24 patients with MCI, 10 had left nostril impairment and 14 did not, which suggests the former group might go on to develop Alzheimer's. The researchers warned more studies are needed to fully understand the implications.
h/t http://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/ClaireWolfe/2013/10/14/monday-links-22/