Alzheimer's and Calorie Restriction
(Via Newswise). Most research funding is tied to repairing specific diseases or the end-stage results of accumulated cellular damage that we call disease. There's money - and greater effectiveness - in prevention, but inefficiency is the way that the present over-regulated medical system leans. So we see a lot of "forest for the trees" research, such as this study. It is clearly a step on the way to pushing calorie restriction (CR) mimetics as a therapy for end stage Alzheimer's disease (AD) - rather than, say, the practice of CR as one of the best preventative measures you could be employing to avoid Alzheimer's. From the article: "caloric restriction through promotion of SIRT1 (a molecule associated with brain longevity) may initiate a cascade of events like the activation of alpha-secretase which can prevent AD amyloid neuropathology. ... the study demonstrates a mechanism by which dietary caloric restriction might benefit AD."