Study finds nicotine patches may help improve memory loss in older adults
2012-01-10
(Press-News.org) Wearing a nicotine patch may help improve memory loss in older adults with mild cognitive impairment, according to a study published today in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
The study looked at individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), the stage between normal aging and dementia when others begin to notice that an individual is developing mild memory or thinking problems. Many older adults with MCI go on to develop Alzheimer's disease.
The study looked at 74 non-smokers with MCI and an average age of 76. Half of the patients were given a nicotine patch of 15 mg a day for six months and half received a placebo. The study was designed so neither the participants nor the investigators knew which group received the nicotine patch.
Paul Newhouse, M.D., professor of Psychiatry and director of the Center for Cognitive Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who authored the study, said the results of the study should not be viewed as an endorsement of smoking or of nicotine for normal individuals. "What we and others have shown is that nicotine doesn't do much for memory and attention in the normal population, but it does do something for those whose cognitive function is already impaired."
"People with memory loss should not start smoking or using nicotine patches by themselves because there are harmful effects of smoking and a medication such as nicotine should only be used with a doctor's supervision," Newhouse said. "But this study provides strong justification for further research into the use of nicotine for people with early signs of memory loss which may help us determine whether benefits persist over long periods of time and provide meaningful improvement."
Newhouse said nicotine is a "fascinating drug with interesting properties." The effects of nicotine are dependent on the initial state of a person's cognitive functioning, he said. "If you're already functioning fine, but slip down the hill, nicotine will push you back up toward the top. A little bit of the drug makes poor performers better. Too much, and it makes them worse again, so there's a range. The key issue is to find the sweet spot where it helps."
The study showed evidence of improvement across multiple cognitive tests for attention memory, speed of processing and consistency of processing. For example, after 6 months of treatment, the nicotine-treated group regained 46 percent of normal performance for age on long-term memory, whereas the placebo group worsened by 26 percent over the same time period. One area that didn't show significant improvement was that of "global impression," which means a health care provider didn't observe the patient was any better or any worse.
Newhouse said that future study is needed. "We need to do a much longer and larger study, to see if we can make a significant impact on the process of change. "
Nicotine stimulates receptors in the brain that are important for thinking and memory and may have neuroprotective effects. People with Alzheimer's disease lose some of those receptors.
Newhouse said the future of nicotinic treatment is to try to identify earlier stages at which treatment can be applied, to see if it changes the trajectory of those who already have evidence of memory loss. "I don't think it's going to become a treatment for Alzheimer's disease by itself. That would be like trying to rebuild a house after a fire when the fire's still going. You need to prevent the fire. The holy grail would be changing the deterioration curve."
Those in the study group receiving the nicotine patch experienced only minor side effects like nausea and dizziness, similar to what a person would experience when smoking a cigarette for the first time, Newhouse said. Those on the nicotine patch also experienced mild weight loss, not surprising since nicotine is an appetite suppressant. There were also no withdrawal symptoms reported when the study participants stopped using the nicotine patch.
INFORMATION:
The study was supported by the National Institute on Aging and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2012-01-10
Over the past 10 years, Americans drank more sugar-sweetened beverages than ever—as much as 13 billion gallons a year—making these drinks the largest source of added sugar and excess calories in the American diet and, arguably, the single largest dietary factor in the current obesity epidemic. While many states have a sales tax on soda, experts believe they are too low to impact consumption. In a study conducted at Columbia University Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco, researchers estimated that if a higher, penny-per-ounce tax were imposed ...
2012-01-10
CHICAGO -- A 2010 outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in Wisconsin has been linked to a decorative fountain in a hospital lobby, according to a study published in the February issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America.
When the outbreak of Legionnaires' disease was detected among eight people in southeast Wisconsin, state and local public health officials worked closely with hospital staff to launch an investigation to determine the source of the outbreak. Legionnaires' disease is a severe and ...
2012-01-10
ALBANY, Calif. -- An interactive tool developed by researchers from the USDA Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Research Station (PSW) will help wind energy facility operators make informed decisions on efficient ways to reduce impacts on migratory bats.
Fatalities of migratory bats at wind energy facilities have become a frequent occurrence. Bat migration patterns are poorly understood and the relationship between fatalities at wind energy facilities and migratory behavior are still being studied. Previous research has shown that adjusting the operations of turbines ...
2012-01-10
Rice University researchers have figured out what gives armchair nanotubes their unique bright colors: hydrogen-like objects called excitons.
Their findings appear in the online edition of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Armchair carbon nanotubes – so named for the "U"-shaped configuration of the atoms at their uncapped tips – are one-dimensional metals and have no band gap. This means electrons flow from one end to the other with little resistivity, the very property that may someday make armchair quantum wires possible.
The Rice researchers show armchair ...
2012-01-10
A new study from SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, shows that MAL3-101, a recently developed inhibitor of the heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70), appears to have potent anti-tumor effects on multiple myeloma, a bone marrow cancer. Despite aggressive modes of treatments, myeloma ultimately remains incurable. The disease has a high incidence in the communities served by SUNY Downstate.
The findings, published in a recent issue of Journal of Oncology, are the result of a collaborative effort among researchers working in the laboratory of Olcay Batuman, MD, ...
2012-01-10
OAK RIDGE, Tenn -- The prospect of electronics at the nanoscale may be even more promising with the first observation of metallic conductance in ferroelectric nanodomains by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Ferroelectric materials, which switch their polarization with the application of an electric field, have long been used in devices such as ultrasound machines and sensors. Now, discoveries about ferroelectrics' electronic properties are opening up possibilities of applications in nanoscale electronics and information storage.
In a paper published in ...
2012-01-10
BATAVIA, Illinois, and BERKELEY, California –Two teams of physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermilab and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have independently made the largest direct measurements of the invisible scaffolding of the universe, building maps of dark matter using new methods that, in turn, will remove key hurdles for understanding dark energy with ground-based telescopes.
The teams' measurements look for tiny distortions in the images of distant galaxies, called "cosmic shear," caused by the gravitational influence of massive, ...
2012-01-10
BOSTON, MA -- Honing chemotherapy delivery to cancer cells is a challenge for many researchers. Getting the cancer cells to take the chemotherapy "bait" is a greater challenge. But perhaps such a challenge has not been met with greater success than by the nanotechnology research team of Omid Farokhzad, MD, Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) Department of Anesthesiology Perioperative and Pain Medicine and Research.
In their latest study with researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Massachusetts General Hospital, the BWH team created a drug delivery ...
2012-01-10
Superior Restoration announced today it has renewed its partnership with Disaster Kleenup International (DKI), LLC, North America's largest disaster restoration contracting organization. Superior Restoration is San Diego's premier disaster cleanup and construction firm, providing 24-hour water damage restoration, fire damage repair and mold remediation services.
By renewing its DKI membership, Superior Restoration will continue to utilize DKI's 24-hour call center, its DIAMOND claims tracking technology, and other tools to enhance its ability to serve its insurance and ...
2012-01-10
Researchers have discovered that children under the age of two control speech using a different strategy than previously thought.
During the study at Queen's University, the researchers changed the vowel sounds that the participants heard over headphones as they talked. They found that while the adults and young children changed their vowel sounds in response to this altered feedback, the toddlers did not.
"We were very surprised to find that the two-year-olds do not monitor their own voice when speaking in the same way as adults do," says Ewen MacDonald, a former Queen's ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Study finds nicotine patches may help improve memory loss in older adults
