ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, March 12, 1997 TAG: 9703120082
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEWSDAY
A researcher from one study group suggests that preventing strokes could also prevent Alzheimer's.
Preventing strokes may have important health benefits for people at risk for Alzheimer's disease. Even small strokes can trigger the onset of the mind-robbing disease and intensify the severity of the symptoms, according to two studies.
``Intuitively, it makes sense,'' said Marcelle Morrison-Bogorad, associate director of the neuroscience and neuropsychology of aging program at the National Institute of Aging in Bethesda, Md. ``There have been many puzzling findings suggesting that the pathology of the Alzheimer's brain didn't always correlate with symptoms of dementia.''
The two new reports on the relationship between stroke and Alzheimer's were published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.
``If we can prevent strokes, we may allow people never to experience the symptoms of Alzheimer's,'' said David Snowdon, a researcher at the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging at the University of Kentucky. His studies also suggest that strokes can increase the symptoms of Alzheimer's once the disease is already on course.
Snowdon has been studying almost 700 nuns of the School Sisters of Notre Dame.
Sixty-one sisters had the hallmark pathological signs of Alzheimer's. More than half the sisters with the Alzheimer's brain pathology, 53 percent, had had no symptoms of dementia during life.
By contrast, 93 percent of the nuns who had had strokes had symptoms of Alzheimer's when alive.
LENGTH: Short : 40 linesby CNB