This is a great day for patients at risk of developing Alzheimer’s. This new test presented by a team from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine really solidifies other studies that have looked at potential biomarkers in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

The test is very straightforward for the patient. The first step is to undergo a spinal tap, which involves inserting a very thin needle into the patient’s back and extracting cerebral spinal fluid from the spine. This is a similar technique to what many patients undergo when they get regional anesthesia for certain surgical procedures. It has minimal pain and minimal side effects, including headaches, which tend to be relieved with treatment.

Once the fluid is extracted, these doctors analyze the fluid for certain proteins, which have been already identified in patients with Alzheimer’s. One of those proteins is called tau and the other is amyloid beta42. These proteins correlate with the build-up of plaque in the patient’s brain, which leads over time to the degenerative effect of Alzheimer’s.

In the study’s results, the test accurately ruled out Alzheimer’s in 92.4 percent of subjects. I think that this study could lead to the test’s possible use in clinical settings especially to diagnose early cognitive impairments which could ultimately lead to Alzheimer’s in families with risk factors.

In these uncertain economic times, it is not unusual for many patients to postpone their regular preventive care. Often viewed as unimportant if there are no obvious problems and “nothing hurts,” the routine dental checkup and cleaning are put on hold in the interest of saving some money.

Unfortunately, nothing can be further from the truth. To begin with, the checkup examination can often help you avoid or detect a dental problem early before it becomes painful both physically and financially. Regular dental care helps ensure healthy teeth and gums, which in turn strengthen a healthy oral immune system.

Good oral health is essential to maintaining total body health as research continues to emerge showing a strong correlation between dental disease and many systemic problems ranging from Alzheimer’s disease to pancreatic cancer. If you are a pregnant woman, you have a seven times higher chance of having a pre-term baby. You also have up to a ten times greater chance of heart attack or stroke, and a seven times higher chance of developing type 2 diabetes. Basically, gum disease is a major source of chronic low-grade inflammation which can have ravaging effects on many body organ systems.

Several recent studies, including one completed with 145,000 patients at Columbia University’s dental school, went even one step further. They found that maintaining or restoring good oral health actually reduced total health care costs up to 21 percent for the management of patients with various systemic diseases. A study performed in Japan concluded virtually the same. The actual potential health care cost savings could easily be in the trillions of dollars if this is considered on a large population scale.

So if you’ve considered putting off your last checkup, think again. There’s a lot to be said about being “penny wise and dollar foolish.”  Now is the time to be more preventive and proactive about your health as a healthy smile is also healthy for your wallet.

Dr. Gerald P. Curatola is a renowned aesthetic dentist and pioneer in the emerging field of rejuvenation dentistry, which improves patients’ overall health and appearance by integrating total wellness with cutting edge oral care and restorative procedures. In addition to his private practice, research, and work as a Clinical Associate Professor at NYU College of Dentistry, he is an internationally sought after speaker, author and expert who has been featured widely in print and broadcast media. For more information, go to DrGerry.net

I always think of the brain as a gigantic muscle. Just like any other part of our bodies, when you don’t exercise your mind, you don’t achieve maximum performance.

I can remember as a student, finding ways to help me understand and memorize the plethora of information that I was bombarded with each day. I kept those habits with me through my lifetime by doing things like reading books that made me think, daily newspapers, playing chess, doing crossword puzzles, writing and listening to music.

As I get older, yes, my knees hurt, I have back pain, and God knows my shoulder gives out once in a while — but my mind is as sharp as ever. There are many disease processes that can prematurely age the brain and interfere with memory, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, epilepsy and certain metabolic disorders. And I know that the pharmaceutical industry is trying their best to develop medications that will help these patients retain memory function.

These days, I am reading more and more about college students relying on pills to help with their concentration. Even parents are requesting that some of these pills be prescribed to their children to enhance their performance in school.

Now I’m not saying that some kids don’t need medications to help them concentrate, but the recreational use of these drugs is getting out of hand, and parents need to be aware that the potential side effects can be serious.

But what is even more upsetting to me, is what I have been reading lately about some pharmaceutical companies developing a new lifestyle pill for the general population suffering from what they like to call “age-related memory loss.”  These new medications are basically watered-down versions of some of the drugs that patients are taking for the treatment of Alzheimer’s. But these new, less-potent versions are targeted toward making healthy minds sharper and more aware.

I can see it now, let’s look at the commercial:

Husband: Honey, I’m home, and I picked up the groceries like you asked.

Wife: Thank you dear, but oh — you forgot to buy the bread and butter.

Husband: Oh, you’re right — I don’t know what happened…I just forgot.

[Insert sentimental music here]

Cue sympathetic voice saying: “Don’t forget the small things, take this ‘new pill’ that will help you remember everything you need to know to keep your wife happy.”

Getting old is not a bad thing. But taking pills to stay young, could have a very damaging effect on our future. What’s next, a pill to forget?

A Dutch woman who was the oldest person in the world when she died at age 115 in 2005 appeared sharp right up to the end, joking that pickled herring was the secret to her longevity.

Scientists say that Henrikje van Andel-Schipper’s mind was probably as good as it seemed: a post-mortem analysis of her brain revealed few signs of Alzheimer’s or other diseases commonly associated with a decline in mental ability in old age.

That came as something of a surprise, said Gert Holstege, a professor at Groningen University, whose findings will be published in the August edition of Neurobiology of Aging.

A 2-year-old boy in England suffers from a rare genetic disease sometimes referred to as children’s Alzheimer’s disease, the Daily Telegraph reports.

Taylor Smith, of Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, England, has been diagnosed with Niemann-Pick disease, type C, a disease that will cause him to develop signs of dementia before he hits his teen years.

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Having a big belly in your 40s can boost your risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia decades later, a new study suggests.

While previous research has found evidence that obesity in middle age raises the chances of developing dementia later, the new work found a separate risk from storing a lot of fat in the abdomen. Even people who weren’t overweight were susceptible.