Alzheimer’s disease linked to hunger hormone: study
OPS_admin | Dec 16, 2009 | Comments 0
A person’s risk of contracting Alzheimer’s may be linked to levels of the appetite-suppressing hormone leptin, according to a US study published Wednesday which could point the way toward future treatment of the disease.
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported that scientists in the northeastern state of Massachusetts have found that high levels of the hormone leptin, which controls appetite, appears to be related to a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s.
“These findings are consistent with recent experimental data indicating the leptin improves memory function in animals… and strengthens the evidence that leptin is a hormone with a broad set of actions in the central nervous system,” wrote the authors of the study, researchers with the Framingham Heart Study, a 60-year-old research project under the direction of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI).
Produced by the body’s fat cells, leptin sends a signal to the brain after a meal that a person has had enough to eat, thereby reducing the urge to eat.
The study measured leptin level in several hundred elderly people without dementia, with particular focus paid to a sub-group of about 200 test subjects who underwent more rigorous magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans.
The research, conducted over 12 years, found that subjects with the lowest levels of leptin were more likely to develop the neurological disease than those with the highest.
Full Story Alzheimer’s disease linked to hunger hormone: study – Yahoo! News.
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If we don't change our ways soon...
A new report by the Royal Society, chaired by Nobel prize-winning biologist Sir John Sulston warns that world population must be stabilized and consumption in wealthy nations must be reduced or the entire planet is in big trouble. As the report reads: "The number of people living on the planet has never been higher, their levels of consumption are unprecedented and vast changes are taking place in the environment. We can choose to rebalance the use of resources to a more egalitarian pattern of consumption... or we can choose to do nothing and to drift into a downward spiral of economic and environmental ills leading to a more unequal and inhospitable future."This is the same warning that President Jimmy Carter gave Americans back in the 1970's - but it was ignored when Ronald Reagan came to power with a "more positive" message basically telling Americans we can do whatever we want. And then after 9/11 - Bush told us all we should go shopping and consume ever more.And now with corporations calling the shots in Washington - long-term sustainability of the planet takes a back seat to short-term profits. If we don't change our ways soon - and embrace clean, alternative energy and educate women around the plant - then we all could be headed for a rough century.-Thom(Is there any chance we will learn in time? Tell us here.) -
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
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