Treating Alzheimer's with Insulin

Contributed by: Dennis Fortier, President, Medical Care Corporation
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As published recently in the Archives of Neurology, Alzheimer's subjects who nasally inhaled insulin performed better on memory tests than subjects who inhaled a placebo spray.  For the most part, I think the general press has reported this quite responsibly, without premature claims of imminent new treatment options on the horizon. Much to the contrary, they might be under-selling the potential for such a breakthrough.

A possible relationship between insulin therapy and Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been appreciated for some time.  Researchers established that diabetes is an important risk factor for AD and have also determined that insulin plays a role in the brain during cell repair and new cell formation.  However, the therapeutic potential for insulin has been hindered by the challenge of getting it into the brain, without introducing it to the rest of the body through the blood.

To be specific, the delivery barrier has been one of controlling where the insulin goes once introduced into the body, given that high doses of insulin would need to be introduced into the blood in order for any significant amount to travel to the brain.  Such an approach would have obvious impact on blood-sugar levels and would quite possibly disrupt other normal biological processes.

As such, a key finding in this research is that nasal injection may deliver significant amounts of insulin to the brain without introducing it to the bloodstream in undesired quantities.  Sounds very promising.

Is Sponge Bob Bad for Your Brain?

Contributed by: Dennis Fortier, President, Medical Care Corporation
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This small study is getting lots of coverage in the mainstream media and I think it is an excellent example of how scientists raise an "interesting possibility" only to have journalists misconstrue it as a "sensational fact".

The study in question was published this week in Pediatrics, the Journal of the American Academy or Pediatrics.  Researchers studied 60 four-year olds to determine the effect of fast-paced, fantastical television viewing on the children's executive function.  Executive function is critical for goal-directed behavior and includes attention, focus, working memory, and problem solving.

In the study, the children were randomly assigned to one of three groups where one group watched 9 minutes of Sponge Bob SquarePants, a second group watched 9 minutes of a PBS educational cartoon, and a third group spent 9 minutes coloring.  Each group then completed a series of tests designed to assess executive function.  The Sponge Bob group performed more poorly on the tests than the other two groups which suggets that this cartoon impairs executive function.

As I described in my opening, scientists would probably look at this study in one way, while journalists would report it in another.  Here's a plausible scientific perspective on the results: It seems that viewing a show with fast paced scene changes and fantastical content, may put the brain into a certain condition for rapidly absorbing a wide range of inputs.  That condition may not lend itself to deep analytical thought and structured problem solving, but is perhaps best for integrating lots of information as quickly as possible.

In this regard, the study would suggest that the brain can adapt to its immediate environment and take on a set of characteristics that is optimal for the situation at hand.  That sounds like a good thing.

However, the journalistic position has been that, because the children who watched Sponge Bob performed poorly on a set of tasks that are very different from making sense of a fast-paced TV show, then such TV shows must be bad for the brain.

I understand that it makes better headlines, but be careful of this journalistic interpretation.   It is a leap to suggest that temporarily changing the brain's state, to one less equipped at particular cognitive task, is automatically bad.  Especially if the brain has assumed a new state more relevant to the immediate challenge.

Consider this.  What if the researchers repeated this experiment but, rather than testing the 4 year olds on their ability to sustain focus, they tested them on their ability to multi-task?  What if the results showed that the "Sponge Bob group" outperformed the others?  Would we then see tantalizing headlines about how cartoons help kids' brains?

Want a Healthy Brain? Stay Physically Active.

Contributed by: Dennis Fortier, President, Medical Care Corporation
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There are no guarantees, but this is our current best bet.  The evidence linking physical fitness to good cognitive health in later life continues to roll in.

At the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease in July, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco presented data showing the high correlation between physical fitness and brain health.  Their research on "modifiable risk factors", or lifestyle changes we are all free to make, showed that regular activity was the most likely to reduce the risk of cognitive decline.

Importantly, several of the other risk factors that are highly correlated with cognitive decline, may also be reduced through physical activity.  Hypertension, obesity, diabetes, and even depression, all of which confer higher risk of cognitive decline, can be managed to some degree through regular physical exercise.

We have known for some time that staying active is good for our hearts and it has always made sense that a regular supply of oxygen-rich blood is probably good for our brains.  This latest research is more evidence that it is likely to be true.