A way to identify these people at the greatest risk

(Biomarkers and lab testing)

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As patients age, a variety of health problems present themselves. These conditions range from cancer to cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases to diabetes, depression and stroke.
One disease becoming particularly pervasive but which has no approved biomarkers for early detection and only minimally effective therapy is Alzheimer's disease (AD). This principal form of dementia was diagnosed a century ago but only recently has become the focus of large multidisciplinary studies.¹
"If you do a literature search, you'll see from the turn of the century until maybe the '60s or '70s there was not much research on it," said Leslie Shaw, PhD, professor, department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, Philadelphia. "So it is a disease receiving the kind of attention you would have liked to have seen earlier."
As to why it took so long to study AD, for one thing, the disease is complicated to detect. "It's not a skin disease where we can just go and take a snip and study it; it's deep in the brain," pointed oud Richard W. Besdine, MD, professor of Medicine, Greer Professor of Geriatric Medicine; director, Division of Geriatrics and Center for Gerontology and Healthcare Research, The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, RI. Secondly, a shift in attitude toward age-related mental decline has occurred over the years.
"We used to say, 'Well, Grandma is senile,'" Dr. Besdine said. "Now we know there's no such thing. There is not an age-related decline in cognitive function. It's disease. Depending on which study you look at, anywhere from 50 to 80 percent of the cognitive decline occuring in America is due to Alzheimer's disease."
The prevalence of AD in the world's population was 26.6 million in 2006 and is expected to quadruple by 2050--a "global epidemic," according to H. Hampel, et al., in an accepted manuscript to Experimental Neurology.² The time has never been more ripe for a clinical biomarker. Not only would earlier/better detection help monitor disease progression, but accurate diagnosis is essential for outcomes of therapy trials. "As we try to develop effective treatments, knowing who has [AD] and who doesn't becomes critically important," Dr. Besdine said. Read more: laboratorian.advanceweb.com

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Do food claims improve consumer health

Functional and fortified foods have a key role to play in filling the nutritional gaps in consumer diets, but on-pack signposting is key to helping people make informed choices, says the British Nutrition Foundation (BNF).   Read more: nutraingredients.com

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